Prior entanglement between senders enables perfect quantum network coding with modification

We find a protocol transmitting two quantum states crossly in the butterfly network only with prior entanglement between two senders. This protocol requires only one qubit transmission or two classical bits (cbits) transmission in each channel in the butterfly network. It is also proved that it is impossible without prior entanglement. More precisely, an upper bound of average fidelity is given in the butterfly network when prior entanglement is not allowed. The presented result concerns only the butterfly network, but our techniques can be applied to a more general graph.

Figure 1

Butterfly network.

Figure 2

Ahlswede et al.’s [1] protocol.

Figure 3

Our protocol with prior entanglement.