Entanglement-assisted zero-error capacity is upper bounded by the Lovasz theta function

Abstract

The zero-error capacity of a classical channel is expressed in terms of the independence number of some graph and its tensor powers. This quantity is hard to compute even for small graphs such as the cycle of length seven, so upper bounds such as the Lovasz theta function play an important role in zero-error communication. In this paper, we show that the Lovasz theta function is an upper bound on the zero-error capacity even in the presence of entanglement between the sender and receiver.