Capacities of the covariant Pauli channel

Abstract

We study the four well-known capacities of a two-parameter family of qubit Pauli channels. These are the channels which are covariant under the SO(2) group and contain the depolarizing channel as a special case. We find exact expressions for the classical capacity and entanglement assisted capacities, and analytically determine the regions where the quantum capacity of the channel vanishes. We then use a flag extension to find upper bound for the quantum capacity and private capacity of these channels in the entire region of parameter space and also obtain the lower bound for the quantum capacity by calculating the single shot quantum capacity numerically. In conjunction with previous results on depolarizing channels, our result is one step forward for determining the capacities of the full Pauli channel.