Quantum Reverse Shannon Theorem Revisited

Abstract: Reverse Shannon theorems concern the use of noiseless channels to simulate noisy ones. This is dual to the usual noisy channel coding problem, where a noisy (classical or quantum) channel is used to simulate a noiseless one. The Quantum Reverse Shannon Theorem is extensively studied by Bennett and co-authors in [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, 2014]. They present two distinct theorems, each tailored to classical and quantum channel simulations respectively, explaining the fact that these theorems remain incomparable due to the fundamentally different nature of correlations they address. The authors leave as an open question the challenge of formulating a unified theorem that could encompass the principles of both and unify them. We unify these two theorems into a single, comprehensive theorem, extending it to the most general case by considering correlations with a general mixed-state reference system. Furthermore, we unify feedback and non-feedback theorems by simulating a general side information system at the encoder side.