Efficient Protocols for Generating Bipartite Classical Distributions and Quantum States

We investigate the fundamental problem of generating bipartite classical distributions or quantum states. By designing efficient communication protocols and proving their optimality, we establish a number of intriguing connections to fundamental measures in optimization, convex geometry, and information theory. 1) To generate a classical distribution P(x, y), we tightly characterize the minimum amount of quantum communication needed by the psd-rank of P (as a matrix), a measure recently proposed by Fiorini et al. (Proc. 44th ACM Symp. Theory Comput., pp. 95-106, 2012) in studies of the minimum size of extended formulations of optimization problems such as TSP. This echos the previous characterization for the optimal classical communication cost by the nonnegative rank of P. The result is obtained via investigating the more general case of bipartite quantum state generation and designing an optimal protocol for it. 2) When an approximation of epsilon is allowed to generate a distribution (X, Y) similar to P, we present a classical protocol of the communication cost O((C(X, Y) + 1)/epsilon), where C(X, Y) is common information, a well-studied measure in information theory introduced by Wyner (IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, 21 (2): 163-179, 1975). This also links nonnegative rank and common information, two seemingly unrelated quantities in different fields. 3) For approximately generating a quantum pure state vertical bar psi >, we completely characterize the minimum cost by a corresponding approximate rank, closing a possibly exponential gap left in Ambainis et al. (SIAM J. Comput., 32 (6): 1570-1585, 2003).