Hyperbits: the information quasiparticles

M. Pawlowski, A. Winter

Published 2011-06-13, updated 2012-03-13Version 2

Information theory has its particles, bits and qubits, just as physics has electrons and photons. However, in physics we have a special category of objects with no clear counterparts in information theory: quasiparticles. They are introduced to simplify complex emergent phenomena making otherwise very difficult calculations possible and providing additional insight into the inner workings of the system. We show that we can adopt a similar approach in information theory. We introduce the hyperbits, the first information quasiparticles which we prove to be a resource equivalent to entanglement and classical communication, and give examples how they can be used to simplify calculations and get more insight into communication protocols.