Abstract:

Communication over a noisy quantum channel introduces errors in the transmission that must
be corrected. A fundamental bound on quantum error correction is the quantum capacity, which quantifies the amount of quantum data that can be protected. We show theoretically that two quantum channels, each with a transmission capacity of zero, can have a nonzero capacity when used together. This unveils a rich structure in the theory of quantum communications, implying that the quantum capacity does not uniquely specify a channel's ability for transmitting quantum information.

This is joint work with Jon Yard (Los Alamos National Labs).

Short biography:

Graeme Smith received the B.Sc. degree in physics from the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, in 2001 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena in 2004 and 2006, respectively. 

Dr. Smith is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, working on quantum information theory, coding theory, and cryptography.