2016/11/30 by Mark Bradshaw, Syed M. Assad, Jing Yan Haw +3
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Computer science #Gaussian #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum information #Quantum mechanics #SIGNAL (programming language) #Statistical physics #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.95.022333
published as Phys. Rev. A 95, 022333 (2017) · 12 pages, 8 figures
openalex publication_date 2017/02/23 · arxiv created 2017/02/28 · arxiv updated 2017/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We cast the problem of illuminating an object in a noisy environment into a communication protocol. A probe is sent into the environment, and the presence or absence of the object constitutes a signal encoded on the probe. The probe is then measured to decode the signal. We calculate the Holevo information and bounds to the accessible information between the encoded and received signal with two different Gaussian probes---an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) state and a coherent state. We also evaluate the Gaussian discord consumed during the encoding process with the EPR probe. We find that the Holevo quantum advantage, defined as the difference between the Holevo information obtained from the EPR and coherent state probes, is approximately equal to the discord consumed. These quantities become exact in the typical illumination regime of low object reflectivity and low probe energy. Hence we show that discord is the resource responsible for the quantum advantage in Gaussian quantum illumination.