Quantum Error Correction in the Presence of Initial System-Environment Correlations

Quantum error correction is studied in a framework consisting of an open quantum system and its environment, jointly subjected to a unitary action, and an interaction-free reference system. It has been shown that coherent information between the initially correlated open system and reference system is conserved in the transmission stage of any quantum communication process, provided that the tripartite input is any pure Markov state and the overall evolution preserves its form. This conservation constitutes the necessary and sufficient condition for accomplishment of perfect error correction by a recovery channel even in the presence of initial system-environment correlations. Explicit expressions of the recovery operators and examples of the joint unitary evolution preserving the form of inputs are given for all classes of pure Markov states.