Permutation Enhances Classical Communication Assisted by Entangled States

Abstract: We give a capacity formula for the classical communication over a noisy quantum channel, when local operations and global permutations allowed in the encoding and bipartite states preshared between the sender and the receiver. The two endpoints of this formula are the Holevo capacity (without entanglement assistance) and the entanglement-assisted capacity (with unlimited entanglement assistance). What's more, we show that the capacity satisfies the strong converse property and thus the formula serves as a sharp dividing line between achievable and unachievable rates of communication. We prove that the difference between the assisted capacity and the Holevo capacity is upper bounded by the discord of formation of the preshared state. As examples, we derive analytically the classical capacity of various quantum channels of interests. Our result witnesses the power of random permutation in classical communication, whenever entanglement assistance is available.