Relative Entropy Bounds on Quantum, Private and Repeater Capacities

Abstract: We find a strong-converse bound on the private capacity of a quantum channel assisted by unlimited two-way classical communication. The bound is based on the max-relative entropy of entanglement and its proof uses a new inequality for the sandwiched R\'{e}nyi divergences based on complex interpolation techniques. We provide explicit examples of quantum channels where our bound improves both the transposition bound (on the quantum capacity assisted by classical communication) and the bound based on the squashed entanglement introduced by Takeoka et al.. As an application we study a repeater version of the private capacity assisted by classical communication and provide an example of a quantum channel with negligible private repeater capacity.