Group-covariant extreme and quasiextreme channels

Constructing all extreme instances of the set of completely positive trace-preserving (CPTP) maps, i.e., quantum channels, is a challenging and valuable open problem in quantum information theory. Here we introduce a systematic approach that, despite the lack of knowledge about the full parametrization of the set of CPTP maps on arbitrary Hilbert-spaced dimension, enables us to construct exactly those extreme channels that are covariant with respect to a finite discrete group or a compact connected Lie group. Innovative labeling of quantum channels by group representations enables us to identify the subset of group-covariant channels whose elements are group-covariant generalized-extreme channels. Furthermore, we exploit essentials of group representation theory to introduce equivalence classes for the labels and also partition the set of group-covariant channels. As a result, we show that it is enough to construct one representative of each partition. We construct Kraus operators for group-covariant generalized-extreme channels by solving systems of linear and quadratic equations for all candidates satisfying the necessary condition for being group-covariant generalized-extreme channels. Deciding whether these constructed instances are extreme or quasiextreme is accomplished by solving a system of linear equations. Proper labeling and partitioning the set of group-covariant channels leads to a novel systematic, algorithmic approach for constructing the entire subset of group-covariant extreme channels. We formalize the problem of constructing and classifying group-covariant generalized extreme channels, thereby yielding an algorithmic approach to solving, which we express as pseudocode. To illustrate the application and value of our method, we solve for explicit examples of group-covariant extreme channels. With unbounded computational resources to execute our algorithm, our method always delivers a description of an extreme channel for any finite-dimensional Hilbert space and furthermore guarantees a description of a group-covariant extreme channel for any dimension and for any finite-discrete or compact connected Lie group if such an extreme channel exists.