The regularized channel Rényi divergence is continuous

Abstract: We show that the regularized channel Rényi divergence is continuous at $α= 1$. As consequences, we establish an exponentially strong converse for channel discrimination, a subchannel-smoothed asymptotic equipartition property, a relative entropy accumulation theorem, and a new proof of the generalized quantum Stein's lemma. Our result further shows that the regularized channel relative entropy is computable. The continuity proof relies on a variational formula that expresses the regularized channel divergence as a single-letter optimization over variables of unrestricted finite dimension. We then establish continuity using a novel spectral confinement technique.