Generalized Quantum Stein's Lemma and Reversibility of Quantum Resource Theories for Classical-Quantum Channels

Abstract

We extend the recent proof of the Generalized Quantum Stein's Lemma by Hayashi and Yamasaki [arXiv:2408.02722] to classical-quantum (c-q) channels. We analyze the composite hypothesis testing problem of testing a c-q channel $\mathcal{E}^{\otimes n}$ against a sequence of sets of c-q channels $(\mathcal{S}_n)_n$ (satisfying certain natural assumptions), under parallel strategies. We prove that the optimal asymptotic asymmetric error exponent is given by the regularization of Umegaki channel divergence, minimized over $\mathcal{S}_n$. This allows us to prove the reversibility of resource theories of classical-quantum channels in a natural framework, where the distance between channels (and hence also the notion of approximate interconvertibility of channels) is measured in diamond norm, and the set of free operations is the set of all asymptotically resource non-generating superchannels. The results we obtain are similar to the ones in the concurrent and independent work by Hayashi and Yamasaki [arXiv:2509.07271]. However the proof of the direct part of the GQSL uses different arguments and techniques to deal with the challenges that arise from dealing with c-q channels.