Work

Efficiently Computable Limits on EPR Pair Generation in Quantum Broadcast Channels

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: We investigate the generation of EPR pairs between three observers in a general causally structured setting, where communication occurs via a noisy quantum broadcast channel. The most general quantum codes for this setup take the form of tripartite quantum channels. Since the receivers are constrained by causal ordering, additional temporal relationships naturally emerge between the parties. These causal constraints enforce intrinsic no-signalling conditions on any tripartite operation, ensuring that it constitutes a physically realizable quantum code for a quantum broadcast channel. We analyze these constraints and, more broadly, characterize the most general quantum codes for communication over such channels. We examine the capabilities of codes that are fully no-signalling among the three parties, positive partial transpose (PPT)-preserving, or both, and derive simple semidefinite programs to compute the achievable entanglement fidelity.We then establish a hierarchy of semidefinite programming converse bounds—both weak and strong—for the capacity of quantum broadcast channels for EPR pair generation, in both one-shot and asymptotic regimes. Notably, in the special case of a point-to-point channel, our strong converse bound recovers and strengthens existing results. Finally, we demonstrate how the PPT-preserving codes we develop can be leveraged to construct PPT-preserving entanglement combing schemes, and vice versa.

Source: IEEE Transactions on Information Theory

DOI: 10.1109/tit.2026.3695699

Authors: Patrick Hayden, Debbie Leung, Hjalmar Rall, Farzin Salek

Institutions: Stanford University, Perimeter Institute, Technical University of Munich, University of Waterloo

Language: English

Topic: Quantum Information and Cryptography

Subfield: Artificial Intelligence

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green