A compression-decompression scheme consists of quantum channels and , where . For the emitted pure-state ensemble, reliability means that the mean squared quantum fidelity tends to one:
The average is taken over the actual source distribution, rather than the worst possible input vector.
A standard stronger formulation of reliable quantum source compression requires
where entanglement fidelity tests preservation of a purification and its reference-system correlations. It implies the mean-fidelity condition for every pure-state ensemble of . Schumacher compression achieves this at any rate : choose , encode the quantum typical subspace, and map atypical outcomes to a fallback state. The composed channel has a Kraus term , so its entanglement fidelity is at least .