Convex splitting is a powerful technique in quantum information theory used in proving the achievability of numerous information-processing protocols such as quantum state redistribution and quantum network channel coding. In this work, we establish a one-shot error exponent and a one-shot strong converse for convex splitting with trace distance as an error criterion. Our results show that the derived error exponent (strong converse exponent) is positive if and only if the rate is in (outside) the achievable region. This leads to new one-shot exponent results in various tasks such as communication over quantum wiretap channels, secret key distillation, one-way quantum message compression, quantum measurement simulation, and quantum channel coding with side information at the transmitter. We also establish a near-optimal one-shot characterization of the sample complexity for convex splitting, which yields matched second-order asymptotics. This then leads to stronger one-shot analysis in many quantum information-theoretic tasks.
The objective of this study is to address the difficulty of simplifying the geometric model in which a differential problem is formulated, also called defeaturing, while simultaneously ensuring that the accuracy of the solution is maintained under control. This enables faster and more efficient simulations, without sacrificing accuracy. More precisely, we consider an isogeometric discretisation of an elliptic model problem defined on a two-dimensional hierarchical B-spline computational domain with a complex boundary. Starting with an oversimplification of the geometry, we build a goal-oriented adaptive strategy that adaptively reintroduces continuous geometrical features in regions where the analysis suggests a large impact on the quantity of interest. This strategy is driven by an a posteriori estimator of the defeaturing error based on first-order shape sensitivity analysis, and it profits from the local refinement properties of hierarchical B-splines. The adaptive algorithm is described together with a procedure to generate (partially) simplified hierarchical B-spline geometrical domains. Numerical experiments are presented to illustrate the proposed strategy and its limitations.
We consider an inverse problem for a finite graph $(X,E)$ where we are given a subset of vertices $B\subset X$ and the distances $d_{(X,E)}(b_1,b_2)$ of all vertices $b_1,b_2\in B$. The distance of points $x_1,x_2\in X$ is defined as the minimal number of edges needed to connect two vertices, so all edges have length 1. The inverse problem is a discrete version of the boundary rigidity problem in Riemannian geometry or the inverse travel time problem in geophysics. We will show that this problem has unique solution under certain conditions and develop quantum computing methods to solve it. We prove the following uniqueness result: when $(X,E)$ is a tree and $B$ is the set of leaves of the tree, the graph $(X,E)$ can be uniquely determined in the class of all graphs having a fixed number of vertices. We present a quantum computing algorithm which produces a graph $(X,E)$, or one of those, which has a given number of vertices and the required distances between vertices in $B$. To this end we develop an algorithm that takes in a qubit representation of a graph and combine it with Grover's search algorithm. The algorithm can be implemented using only $O(|X|^2)$ qubits, the same order as the number of elements in the adjacency matrix of $(X,E)$. It also has a quadratic improvement in computational cost compared to standard classical algorithms. Finally, we consider applications in theory of computation, and show that a slight modification of the above inverse problem is NP-complete: all NP-problems can be reduced to a discrete inverse problem we consider.
In many information processing systems, it may be desirable to ensure that any change of the input, whether by shifting or scaling, results in a corresponding change in the system response. While deep neural networks are gradually replacing all traditional automatic processing methods, they surprisingly do not guarantee such normalization-equivariance (scale + shift) property, which can be detrimental in many applications. To address this issue, we propose a methodology for adapting existing neural networks so that normalization-equivariance holds by design. Our main claim is that not only ordinary convolutional layers, but also all activation functions, including the ReLU (rectified linear unit), which are applied element-wise to the pre-activated neurons, should be completely removed from neural networks and replaced by better conditioned alternatives. To this end, we introduce affine-constrained convolutions and channel-wise sort pooling layers as surrogates and show that these two architectural modifications do preserve normalization-equivariance without loss of performance. Experimental results in image denoising show that normalization-equivariant neural networks, in addition to their better conditioning, also provide much better generalization across noise levels.
We consider the point-to-point lossy coding for computing and channel coding problems with two-sided information. We first unify these problems by considering a new generalized problem. Then we develop graph-based characterizations and derive interesting reductions through explicit graph operations, which reduce the number of decision variables. After that, we design alternating optimization algorithms for the unified problems, so that numerical computations for both the source and channel problems are covered. With the help of extra root-finding techniques, proper multiplier update strategies are developed. Thus our algorithms can compute the problems for a given distortion or cost constraint and the convergence can be proved. Also, extra heuristic deflation techniques are introduced which largely reduce the computational time. Numerical results show the accuracy and efficiency of our algorithms.
Quantifying entanglement is an important task by which the resourcefulness of a quantum state can be measured. Here we develop a quantum algorithm that tests for and quantifies the separability of a general bipartite state, by making use of the quantum steering effect, the latter originally discovered by Schr\"odinger. Our separability test consists of a distributed quantum computation involving two parties: a computationally limited client, who prepares a purification of the state of interest, and a computationally unbounded server, who tries to steer the reduced systems to a probabilistic ensemble of pure product states. To design a practical algorithm, we replace the role of the server by a combination of parameterized unitary circuits and classical optimization techniques to perform the necessary computation. The result is a variational quantum steering algorithm (VQSA), which is a modified separability test that is better suited for the capabilities of quantum computers available today. We then simulate our VQSA on noisy quantum simulators and find favorable convergence properties on the examples tested. We also develop semidefinite programs, executable on classical computers, that benchmark the results obtained from our VQSA. Our findings here thus provide a meaningful connection between steering, entanglement, quantum algorithms, and quantum computational complexity theory. They also demonstrate the value of a parameterized mid-circuit measurement in a VQSA and represent a first-of-its-kind application for a distributed VQA.
In this work, we prove rigorous error estimates for a hybrid method introduced in [15] for solving the time-dependent radiation transport equation (RTE). The method relies on a splitting of the kinetic distribution function for the radiation into uncollided and collided components. A high-resolution method (in angle) is used to approximate the uncollided components and a low-resolution method is used to approximate the the collided component. After each time step, the kinetic distribution is reinitialized to be entirely uncollided. For this analysis, we consider a mono-energetic problem on a periodic domains, with constant material cross-sections of arbitrary size. To focus the analysis, we assume the uncollided equation is solved exactly and the collided part is approximated in angle via a spherical harmonic expansion ($\text{P}_N$ method). Using a non-standard set of semi-norms, we obtain estimates of the form $C(\varepsilon,\sigma,\Delta t)N^{-s}$ where $s\geq 1$ denotes the regularity of the solution in angle, $\varepsilon$ and $\sigma$ are scattering parameters, $\Delta t$ is the time-step before reinitialization, and $C$ is a complicated function of $\varepsilon$, $\sigma$, and $\Delta t$. These estimates involve analysis of the multiscale RTE that includes, but necessarily goes beyond, usual spectral analysis. We also compute error estimates for the monolithic $\text{P}_N$ method with the same resolution as the collided part in the hybrid. Our results highlight the benefits of the hybrid approach over the monolithic discretization in both highly scattering and streaming regimes.
The Blahut-Arimoto algorithm is a well known method to compute classical channel capacities and rate-distortion functions. Recent works have extended this algorithm to compute various quantum analogs of these quantities. In this paper, we show how these Blahut-Arimoto algorithms are special instances of mirror descent, which is a well-studied generalization of gradient descent for constrained convex optimization. Using new convex analysis tools, we show how relative smoothness and strong convexity analysis recovers known sublinear and linear convergence rates for Blahut-Arimoto algorithms. This mirror descent viewpoint allows us to derive related algorithms with similar convergence guarantees to solve problems in information theory for which Blahut-Arimoto-type algorithms are not directly applicable. We apply this framework to compute energy-constrained classical and quantum channel capacities, classical and quantum rate-distortion functions, and approximations of the relative entropy of entanglement, all with provable convergence guarantees.
Motivated by various computational applications, we investigate the problem of estimating nested expectations. Building upon recent work by the authors, we propose a novel Monte Carlo estimator for nested expectations, inspired by sparse grid quadrature, that does not require sampling from inner conditional distributions. Theoretical analysis establishes an upper bound on the mean squared error of our estimator under mild assumptions on the problem, demonstrating its efficiency for cases with low-dimensional outer variables. We illustrate the effectiveness of our estimator through its application to problems related to value of information analysis, with moderate dimensionality. Overall, our method presents a promising approach to efficiently estimate nested expectations in practical computational settings.
Weir has defined a hierarchy of language classes whose second member ($\mathcal{L}_2$) is generated by tree-adjoining grammars (TAG), linear indexed grammars (LIG), combinatory categorial grammars, and head grammars. The hierarchy is obtained using the mechanism of control, and $\mathcal{L}_2$ is obtained using a context-free grammar (CFG) whose derivations are controlled by another CFG. We adapt Weir's definition of a controllable CFG to give a definition of controllable pushdown automata (PDAs). This yields three new characterizations of $\mathcal{L}_2$ as the class of languages generated by PDAs controlling PDAs, PDAs controlling CFGs, and CFGs controlling PDAs. We show that these four formalisms are not only weakly equivalent but equivalent in a stricter sense that we call d-weak equivalence. Furthermore, using an even stricter notion of equivalence called d-strong equivalence, we make precise the intuition that a CFG controlling a CFG is a TAG, a PDA controlling a PDA is an embedded PDA, and a PDA controlling a CFG is a LIG. The fourth member of this family, a CFG controlling a PDA, does not correspond to any formalism we know of, so we invent one and call it a Pushdown Adjoining Automaton.
Orienting the edges of an undirected graph such that the resulting digraph satisfies some given constraints is a classical problem in graph theory, with multiple algorithmic applications. In particular, an $st$-orientation orients each edge of the input graph such that the resulting digraph is acyclic, and it contains a single source $s$ and a single sink $t$. Computing an $st$-orientation of a graph can be done efficiently, and it finds notable applications in graph algorithms and in particular in graph drawing. On the other hand, finding an $st$-orientation with at most $k$ transitive edges is more challenging and it was recently proven to be NP-hard already when $k=0$. We strengthen this result by showing that the problem remains NP-hard even for graphs of bounded diameter, and for graphs of bounded vertex degree. These computational lower bounds naturally raise the question about which structural parameters can lead to tractable parameterizations of the problem. Our main result is a fixed-parameter tractable algorithm parameterized by treewidth.