Sharing multi-partite quantum entanglement between parties allows for diverse secure communication tasks to be performed. Among them, conference key agreement (CKA), an extension of key distribution to multiple parties, has received much attention recently. Interestingly, CKA can also be performed in a way that protects the identities of the participating parties, therefore providing anonymity. In this work, we propose an anonymous CKA protocol for three parties that is implemented in a highly practical network setting. Specifically, a line of quantum repeater nodes is used to build a linear cluster state among all nodes, which is then used to anonymously establish a secret key between any three of them. The nodes need only share maximally entangled pairs with their neighbours, therefore avoiding the necessity of a central server sharing entangled states. This repeater setup makes our protocol an excellent candidate for implementation in future quantum networks. We explicitly prove that our protocol protects the identities of the participants from one another and perform an analysis of the key rate in the finite regime, contributing to the quest of identifying feasible quantum communication tasks for network architectures beyond point-to-point.
We present a relational representation of odd Sugihara chains. The elements of the algebra are represented as weakening relations over a particular poset which consists of two densely embedded copies of the rationals. Our construction mimics that of Maddux (2010) where a relational representation of the even Sugihara chains is given. An order automorphism between the two copies of the rationals is the key to ensuring that the identity element of the monoid is fixed by the involution.
We study the global linear convergence of policy gradient (PG) methods for finite-horizon continuous-time exploratory linear-quadratic control (LQC) problems. The setting includes stochastic LQC problems with indefinite costs and allows additional entropy regularisers in the objective. We consider a continuous-time Gaussian policy whose mean is linear in the state variable and whose covariance is state-independent. Contrary to discrete-time problems, the cost is noncoercive in the policy and not all descent directions lead to bounded iterates. We propose geometry-aware gradient descents for the mean and covariance of the policy using the Fisher geometry and the Bures-Wasserstein geometry, respectively. The policy iterates are shown to satisfy an a-priori bound, and converge globally to the optimal policy with a linear rate. We further propose a novel PG method with discrete-time policies. The algorithm leverages the continuous-time analysis, and achieves a robust linear convergence across different action frequencies. A numerical experiment confirms the convergence and robustness of the proposed algorithm.
For augmentation of the square-shaped image data of a convolutional neural network (CNN), we introduce a new method, in which the original images are mapped onto a disk with a conformal mapping, rotated around the center of this disk and mapped under such a M\"obius transformation that preserves the disk, and then mapped back onto their original square shape. This process does not result the loss of information caused by removing areas from near the edges of the original images unlike the typical transformations used in the data augmentation for a CNN. We offer here the formulas of all the mappings needed together with detailed instructions how to write a code for transforming the images. The new method is also tested with simulated data and, according the results, using this method to augment the training data of 10 images into 40 images decreases the amount of the error in the predictions by a CNN for a test set of 160 images in a statistically significant way (p-value=0.0360).
The equioscillation theorem interleaves the Haar condition, the existence and uniqueness and strong uniqueness of the optimal Chebyshev approximation and its characterization by the equioscillation condition in a way that cannot extend to multivariate approximation: Rice~[\emph{Transaction of the AMS}, 1963] says ''A form of alternation is still present for functions of several variables. However, there is apparently no simple method of distinguishing between the alternation of a best approximation and the alternation of other approximating functions. This is due to the fact that there is no natural ordering of the critical points.'' In addition, in the context of multivariate approximation the Haar condition is typically not satisfied and strong uniqueness may hold or not. The present paper proposes an multivariate equioscillation theorem, which includes such a simple alternation condition on error extrema, existence and a sufficient condition for strong uniqueness. To this end, the relationship between the properties interleaved in the univariate equioscillation theorem is clarified: first, a weak Haar condition is proposed, which simply implies existence. Second, the equioscillation condition is shown to be equivalent to the optimality condition of convex optimization, hence characterizing optimality independently from uniqueness. It is reformulated as the synchronized oscillations between the error extrema and the components of a related Haar matrix kernel vector, in a way that applies to multivariate approximation. Third, an additional requirement on the involved Haar matrix and its kernel vector, called strong equioscillation, is proved to be sufficient for the strong uniqueness of the solution. These three disconnected conditions give rise to a multivariate equioscillation theorem, where existence, characterization by equioscillation and strong uniqueness are separated, without involving the too restrictive Haar condition. Remarkably, relying on optimality condition of convex optimization gives rise to a quite simple proof. Instances of multivariate problems with strongly unique, non-strong but unique and non-unique solutions are presented to illustrate the scope of the theorem.
We develop randomized matrix-free algorithms for estimating partial traces. Our algorithm improves on the typicality-based approach used in [T. Chen and Y-C. Cheng, Numerical computation of the equilibrium-reduced density matrix for strongly coupled open quantum systems, J. Chem. Phys. 157, 064106 (2022)] by deflating important subspaces (e.g. corresponding to the low-energy eigenstates) explicitly. This results in a significant variance reduction for matrices with quickly decaying singular values. We then apply our algorithm to study the thermodynamics of several Heisenberg spin systems, particularly the entanglement spectrum and ergotropy.
The prevailing statistical approach to analyzing persistence diagrams is concerned with filtering out topological noise. In this paper, we adopt a different viewpoint and aim at estimating the actual distribution of a random persistence diagram, which captures both topological signal and noise. To that effect, Chazel and Divol (2019) proved that, under general conditions, the expected value of a random persistence diagram is a measure admitting a Lebesgue density, called the persistence intensity function. In this paper, we are concerned with estimating the persistence intensity function and a novel, normalized version of it -- called the persistence density function. We present a class of kernel-based estimators based on an i.i.d. sample of persistence diagrams and derive estimation rates in the supremum norm. As a direct corollary, we obtain uniform consistency rates for estimating linear representations of persistence diagrams, including Betti numbers and persistence surfaces. Interestingly, the persistence density function delivers stronger statistical guarantees.
We propose an interpretation of multiparty sessions with asynchronous communication as Flow Event Structures. We introduce a new notion of global type for asynchronous multiparty sessions, ensuring the expected properties for sessions, including progress. Our global types, which reflect asynchrony more directly than standard global types and are more permissive, are themselves interpreted as Prime Event Structures. The main result is that the Event Structure interpretation of a session is equivalent, when the session is typable, to the Event Structure interpretation of its global type.
Optimum distance flag codes (ODFCs), as special flag codes, have received a lot of attention due to its application in random network coding. In 2021, Alonso-Gonz\'{a}lez et al. constructed optimal $(n,\mathcal{A})$-ODFC for $\mathcal {A}\subseteq \{1,2,\ldots,k,n-k,\ldots,n-1\}$ with $k\in \mathcal A$ and $k|n$. In this paper, we introduce a new construction of $(n,\mathcal A)_q$-ODFCs by maximum rank-metric codes. It is proved that there is an $(n,\mathcal{A})$-ODFC of size $\frac{q^n-q^{k+r}}{q^k-1}+1$ for any $\mathcal{A}\subseteq\{1,2,\ldots,k,n-k,\ldots,n-1\}$ with $\mathcal A\cap \{k,n-k\}\neq\emptyset$, where $r\equiv n\pmod k$ and $0\leq r<k$. Furthermore, when $k>\frac{q^r-1}{q-1}$, this $(n,\mathcal A)_q$-ODFC is optimal. Specially, when $r=0$, Alonso-Gonz\'{a}lez et al.'s result is also obtained.
Quantum computing has shown tremendous promise in addressing complex computational problems, yet its practical realization is hindered by the limited availability of qubits for computation. Recent advancements in quantum hardware have introduced mid-circuit measurements and resets, enabling the reuse of measured qubits and significantly reducing the qubit requirements for executing quantum algorithms. In this work, we present a systematic study of dynamic quantum circuit compilation, a process that transforms static quantum circuits into their dynamic equivalents with a reduced qubit count through qubit-reuse. We establish the first general framework for optimizing the dynamic circuit compilation via graph manipulation. In particular, we completely characterize the optimal quantum circuit compilation using binary integer programming, provide efficient algorithms for determining whether a given quantum circuit can be reduced to a smaller circuit and present heuristic algorithms for devising dynamic compilation schemes in general. Furthermore, we conduct a thorough analysis of quantum circuits with practical relevance, offering optimal compilations for well-known quantum algorithms in quantum computation, ansatz circuits utilized in quantum machine learning, and measurement-based quantum computation crucial for quantum networking. We also perform a comparative analysis against state-of-the-art approaches, demonstrating the superior performance of our methods in both structured and random quantum circuits. Our framework lays a rigorous foundation for comprehending dynamic quantum circuit compilation via qubit-reuse, bridging the gap between theoretical quantum algorithms and their physical implementation on quantum computers with limited resources.
Finding the optimal design of experiments in the Bayesian setting typically requires estimation and optimization of the expected information gain functional. This functional consists of one outer and one inner integral, separated by the logarithm function applied to the inner integral. When the mathematical model of the experiment contains uncertainty about the parameters of interest and nuisance uncertainty, (i.e., uncertainty about parameters that affect the model but are not themselves of interest to the experimenter), two inner integrals must be estimated. Thus, the already considerable computational effort required to determine good approximations of the expected information gain is increased further. The Laplace approximation has been applied successfully in the context of experimental design in various ways, and we propose two novel estimators featuring the Laplace approximation to alleviate the computational burden of both inner integrals considerably. The first estimator applies Laplace's method followed by a Laplace approximation, introducing a bias. The second estimator uses two Laplace approximations as importance sampling measures for Monte Carlo approximations of the inner integrals. Both estimators use Monte Carlo approximation for the remaining outer integral estimation. We provide three numerical examples demonstrating the applicability and effectiveness of our proposed estimators.