Accessible information

The accessible information is the amount of classical information that can be extracted from a quantum system by an optimal measurement when the information is encoded using a particular ensemble of quantum states.

More precisely, consider an ensemble \mathcal{E} = \{ (p_X,\rho_X) \} where the probabilities come from the random variable X. Let YP be the random variable that denotes the outcomes of the measurement described by a POVM P. The mutual information between X and Y

math

quantifies how much information Y contains about X. The accessible information is the maximum of this when all possible POVMs are possible,

math

Bounds

The accessible information is upper bounded by the Holevo quantity[1],

math

where S is the von Neumann entropy.

By substituting the von Neumann entropy in the Holevo quantity for the subentropy Q, one gets a lower bound [2],

math

References

[1] Information theoretical aspects of quantum measurements, Probl. Info.Transm. (USSR), vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 31–42, 1973 (in Russian); [translation: A. S. Kholevo,Probl. Info. Transm., vol. 9, pp. 177–183, 1973]
[2] Lower bound for accessible information in quantum mechanics, Richard Jozsa, Daniel Robb, and William K. Wootters, Publication Phys. Rev. A 49, 668 - 677 (1994)