Gaussian Optimality of Energy-Constrained One-Shot Communication through Single-Mode Bosonic Gaussian Channels

Abstract

We prove Gaussian optimality for the energy-constrained one-shot Holevo capacity of single-mode bosonic Gaussian channels, including phase-sensitive channels with arbitrarily squeezed thermal noise. The unresolved regime is the low energy branch, where the Gaussian optimizer modulates only one quadrature and minimum-output-entropy arguments cannot decouple the average state from the letters. For pure one-mode dilations we retain a stronger pointwise result: moment-matched Gaussianization improves the fixed average Holevo function for every input. For mixed environments, whose purification produces a 1:2 entanglement-of-formation problem, we avoid any generic 1:2 Gaussian extremality conjecture. The optimal Gaussian letter selects an effective environmental Schmidt mode and an affine two-mode EPR witness. Its null direction is exactly the modulated quadrature, while its slope equals the negative derivative of the Gaussian letter-output entropy. This produces a supporting lower bound on the dilated entanglement of formation; Gaussian maximum entropy and concavity then give a global upper bound tangent at the Gaussian optimizer. Consequently the known Gaussian formulas for attenuating, amplifying, phase-conjugating, and additive-noise fiducial channels are exact over unrestricted ensembles at every input energy. Via the passive-input fiducial decomposition and energy-constrained continuity, the result extends to every single-mode Gaussian channel, including lower-rank canonical limits. No additivity across channel uses is assumed.