Quantum mutual information in time

Journal article

While the quantum mutual information is a fundamental measure of quantum information, it is only defined for spacelike separated quantum systems. Such a limitation is not present in the theory of classical information, where the mutual information between two random variables is well-defined irrespective of whether or not the variables are separated in space or separated in time. Motivated by this disparity between the classical and quantum mutual information, we employ the pseudo-density matrix formalism to define a simple extension of quantum mutual information into the time domain. As in the spatial case, we show that such a notion of quantum mutual information in time serves as a natural measure of correlation between timelike separated systems, while also highlighting ways in which quantum correlations distinguish between space and time. We also show how such quantum mutual information is time-symmetric with respect to quantum Bayesian inversion, and then we conclude by showing how quantum mutual information in time yields a Holevo bound for the amount of classical information that may be extracted from sequential measurements on an ensemble of quantum states.

Authors: Wu, Z; Parzygnat, AJ; Vedral, V; Fullwood, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Journal: New Journal of Physics
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 6
• Article number: 064504
• Publication date: 2025-06-09
• Acceptance date: 2025-05-29
• DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/adde7d
• EISSN: 1367-2630
• Language: English
• Keywords: quantum information; quantum correlations; entropy