On quantum reading, quantum illumination, and other notions

Abstract

In this brief review, we start by clarifying the crucial differences between three different protocols of quantum channel discrimination. In some recent literature, there has been confusion between the protocols of quantum illumination [1, 2], quantum reading [3], and a scheme of communication within a discrete-variable quantum computer [4]. While all these protocols are based on the model of quantum channel discrimination, they have completely different applications and features, which is the reason why they have different names and should not be naively confused. We also discuss the notion of quantum reading capacity [5] of an ensemble of quantum channels, clarifying how this is easily extended to an adaptive formulation and discussing the mathematical conditions under which it can be connected to the different notion of dense coding capacity [6] of a quantum channel.