No Arabic abstract
A series of recent works has shown that placing communication channels in a coherent superposition of alternative configurations can boost their ability to transmit information. Instances of this phenomenon are the advantages arising from the use of communication devices in a superposition of alternative causal orders, and those arising from the transmission of information along a superposition of alternative trajectories. The relation among these advantages has been the subject of recent debate, with some authors claiming that the advantages of the superposition of orders could be reproduced, and even surpassed, by other forms of superpositions. To shed light on this debate, we develop a general framework of resource theories of communication. In this framework, the resources are communication devices, and the allowed operations are (a) the placement of communication devices between the communicating parties, and (b) the connection of communication devices with local devices in the parties laboratories. The allowed operations are required to satisfy the minimal condition that they do not enable communication independently of the devices representing the initial resources. The resource-theoretic analysis reveals that the aforementioned criticisms on the superposition of causal orders were based on an uneven comparison between different types of quantum superpositions, exhibiting different operational features.
Full quantum capability devices can provide secure communications, but they are challenging to make portable given the current technology. Besides, classical portable devices are unable to construct communication channels resistant to quantum computers. Hence, communication security on portable devices cannot be guaranteed. Semi-Quantum Communication (SQC) attempts to break the quandary by lowering the receivers required quantum capability so that secure communications can be implemented on a portable device. However, all SQC protocols have low qubit efficiency and complex hardware implementations. The protocols involving quantum entanglement require linear Entanglement Preservation Time (EPT) and linear quregister size. In this paper, we propose two new keyless SQC protocols that address the aforementioned weaknesses. They are named Economic Keyless Semi-Quantum Point-to-point Communication (EKSQPC) and Rate Estimation EKSQPC (REKSQPC). They achieve theoretically constant minimal EPT and quregister size, regardless of message length. We show that the new protocols, with low overhead, can detect Measure and Replay Attacks (MRAs). REKSQDC is tolerant to transmission impairments and environmental perturbations. The protocols are based on a new quantum message transmission operation termed Tele-Fetch. Like QKD, their strength depends on physical principles rather than mathematical complexity.
A $((k,n))$ quantum threshold secret sharing (QTS) scheme is a quantum cryptographic protocol for sharing a quantum secret among $n$ parties such that the secret can be recovered by any $k$ or more parties while $k-1$ or fewer parties have no information about the secret. Despite extensive research on these schemes, there has been very little study on optimizing the quantum communication cost during recovery. Recently, we initiated the study of communication efficient quantum threshold secret sharing (CE-QTS) schemes. These schemes reduce the communication complexity in QTS schemes by accessing $dgeq k$ parties for recovery; here $d$ is fixed ahead of encoding the secret. In contrast to the standard QTS schemes which require $k$ qudits for recovering each qudit in the secret, these schemes have a lower communication cost of $frac{d}{d-k+1}$ for $d>k$. In this paper, we further develop the theory of communication efficient quantum threshold schemes. Here, we propose universal CE-QTS schemes which reduce the communication cost for all $dgeq k$ simultaneously. We provide a framework based on ramp quantum secret sharing to construct CE-QTS and universal CE-QTS schemes. We give another construction for universal CE-QTS schemes based on Staircase codes. We derived a lower bound on communication complexity and show that our constructions are optimal. Finally, an information theoretic model is developed to analyse CE-QTS schemes and the lower bound on communication complexity is proved again using this model.
We consider the problem of transmitting classical and quantum information reliably over an entanglement-assisted quantum channel. Our main result is a capacity theorem that gives a three-dimensional achievable rate region. Points in the region are rate triples, consisting of the classical communication rate, the quantum communication rate, and the entanglement consumption rate of a particular coding scheme. The crucial protocol in achieving the boundary points of the capacity region is a protocol that we name the classically-enhanced father protocol. The classically-enhanced father protocol is more general than other protocols in the family tree of quantum Shannon theoretic protocols, in the sense that several previously known quantum protocols are now child protocols of it. The classically-enhanced father protocol also shows an improvement over a time-sharing strategy for the case of a qubit dephasing channel--this result justifies the need for simultaneous coding of classical and quantum information over an entanglement-assisted quantum channel. Our capacity theorem is of a multi-letter nature (requiring a limit over many uses of the channel), but it reduces to a single-letter characterization for at least three channels: the completely depolarizing channel, the quantum erasure channel, and the qubit dephasing channel.
It has been conjectured that counterfactual communication is impossible, even for post-selected quantum particles. We strongly challenge this by proposing exactly such a counterfactual scheme where---unambiguously---none of Alices photons that contribute to the message from Bob have been to Bob. We demonstrate counterfactuality experimentally by means of weak measurements, as well as conceptually using consistent histories---thus simultaneously closing both loopholes. Importantly, the fidelity of Alice learning Bobs bit can be made arbitrarily close to unity.
Quantum resource theories (QRTs) offer a highly versatile and powerful framework for studying different phenomena in quantum physics. From quantum entanglement to quantum computation, resource theories can be used to quantify a desirable quantum effect, develop new protocols for its detection, and identify processes that optimize its use for a given application. Particularly, QRTs revolutionize the way we think about familiar properties of physical systems like entanglement, elevating them from just being interesting from a fundamental point of view to being useful in performing practical tasks. The basic methodology of a general QRT involves partitioning all quantum states into two groups, one consisting of free states and the other consisting of resource states. Accompanying the set of free states is a collection of free quantum operations arising from natural restrictions on physical systems, and that consists of all the physical processes allowed by the resource theory and which acts invariantly on the set of free states. The QRT then studies what information processing tasks become possible using the restricted operations. Despite the large degree of freedom in how one defines the free states and free operations, unexpected similarities emerge among different QRTs in terms of resource measures and resource convertibility. As a result, objects that appear quite distinct on the surface, such as entanglement and quantum reference frames, appear to have great similarity on a deeper structural level. In this article we review the general framework of a quantum resource theory, focusing on common structural features, operational tasks, and resource measures. To illustrate these concepts, an overview is provided on some of the more commonly studied QRTs in the literature.