Exactness of the doubly nonnegative relaxation for qubit-output quantum channels

Abstract:The resource theory for nonnegativity of quantum amplitudes distinguishes completely positive completely positive (CPCP) quantum channels from the larger class of completely positive doubly nonnegative (CPDNN) quantum channels. Johnston and Sikora showed that all qubit-to-qubit quantum channels that are CPDNN are also CPCP. However, they left open the question of whether a qutrit-to-qubit quantum channel exists that is CPDNN but not CPCP. We prove that no such channel exists and, more generally, that every CPDNN quantum channel with qubit output is CPCP. Thus the doubly nonnegative relaxation is exact for all qubit-output quantum channels. Our argument yields an explicit structural picture in which, after a canonical permutation of the Choi matrix, every qubit-output CPDNN channel is determined by a nonnegative vector and a nonnegative matrix, subject to a single positive-semidefinite block constraint. This gives a complete binary-output normal form, an explicit formula for the action of the channel, and quantitative population-coherence tradeoff inequalities governing the unique output off-diagonal mode. In this sense, qubit output is the nontrivial binary regime in which trace preservation and double nonnegativity collapse the free-channel cone to a fully describable geometry.

arXiv:2603.16962 [quant-ph]

(or arXiv:2603.16962v2 [quant-ph] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.16962 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

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