We show that the recently discovered universal upper bound on the thermal conductance of a single channel comprising particles obeying arbitrary fractional statistics is in fact a consequence of a more general universal upper bound, involving the averaged entropy and energy currents of a single channel connecting heat reservoirs with arbitrary temperatures and chemical potentials. The latter upper bound in turn leads, via Holevo’s theorem, to a universal (i.e., statistics-independent) upper bound on the optimum capacity for classical information transmission down a single, wideband quantum channel.

• Received 24 January 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.62.052104