Classical analogue of quantum superdense coding and communication advantage of a single quantum system

Abstract

We analyze utility of communication channels in absence of any short of quantum or classical correlation shared between the sender and the receiver. To this aim, we propose a class of two-party communication games, and show that the games cannot be won given a noiseless $1$-bit classical channel from the sender to the receiver. Interestingly, the goal can be perfectly achieved if the channel is assisted with classical shared randomness. This resembles an advantage similar to the quantum superdense coding phenomenon where pre-shared entanglement can enhance the communication utility of a perfect quantum communication line. Quite surprisingly, we show that a qubit communication without any assistance of classical shared randomness can achieve the goal, and hence establishes a novel quantum advantage in the simplest communication scenario. In pursuit of a deeper origin of this advantage, we show that an advantageous quantum strategy must invoke quantum interference both at the encoding step by the sender and at the decoding step by the receiver. We also study communication utility of a class of non-classical toy systems described by symmetric polygonal state spaces. We come up with communication tasks that can be achieved neither with $1$-bit of classical communication nor by communicating a polygon system, whereas $1$-qubit communication yields a perfect strategy, establishing quantum advantage over them. To this end, we show that the quantum advantages are robust against imperfect encodings-decodings, making the protocols implementable with presently available quantum technologies.