Quantum Analog of the MacWilliams Identities for Classical Coding Theory

Abstract

We derive a relationship between two different notions of fidelity (entanglement fidelity and average fidelity) for a completely depolarizing quantum channel. This relationship gives rise to a quantum analog of the MacWilliams identities in classical coding theory. These identities relate the weight enumerator of a code to the one of its dual and, with linear programming techniques, provide a powerful tool to investigate the possible existence of codes. The same techniques can be adapted to the quantum case. We give examples of their power.