Privacy Amplification Against Quantum Side Information Via Regular Random Binning

Abstract: We consider privacy amplification against quantum side information by using regular random binning as an effective extractor. For constant-type sources, we obtain error exponent and strong converse bounds in terms of the so-called quantum Augustin information. Via type decomposition, we then recover the error exponent for independent and identically distributed sources proved by Dupuis [arXiv:2105.05342]. As an application, we obtain an achievable secrecy exponent for classical-quantum wiretap channel coding in terms of the Augustin information, which solves an open problem in [IEEE Trans.~Inf.~Theory, 65(12):7985, 2019]. Our approach is to establish an operational equivalence between privacy amplification and quantum soft covering; this may be of independent interest.