Quantum Channel Simulation and the Channel's Smooth Max-Information

We study the general framework of quantum channel simulation, that is, the ability of a quantum channel to simulate another one using different classes of codes. Our main results are as follows. First, we show that the minimum error of simulation under non-signalling assisted codes is efficiently computable via semidefinite programming. The cost of simulating a channel via noiseless quantum channels under non-signalling assisted codes can also be characterized as a semidefinite program. Second, we introduce the channel's smooth max-information, which can be seen as a one-shot generalization of the channel's mutual information. We show that the one-shot quantum simulation cost under non-signalling assisted codes is exactly equal to the channel's smooth max-information. Due to the quantum reverse Shannon theorem, the channel's smooth max-information converges to the channel's mutual information in the independent and identically distributed asymptotic limit. Together with earlier findings on the (activated) non-signalling assisted one-shot capacity of channels [Wang et al., arXiv:1709.05258], this suggest that the operational min- and max-type one-shot analogues of the channel's mutual information are the channel's hypothesis testing relative entropy and the channel's smooth max-information, respectively.