Classical and quantum correlative capacities of quantum systems

How strongly can one system be correlated with another? In the classical world, this basic question concerning correlative capacity has a very satisfying answer: The ''effective size'' of the marginal system, as quantified by the Shannon entropy, sets a tight upper bound to the correlations, as quantified by the mutual information. Although in the quantum world bipartite correlations, like their classical counterparts, are also well quantified by mutual information, the similarity ends here: The correlations in a bipartite quantum system can be twice as large as the marginal entropy. In the paradigm of quantum discord, the correlations are split into classical and quantum components, and it was conjectured that both the classical and quantum correlations are (like the classical mutual information) bounded above by each subsystem's entropy. In this work, by exploiting the interplay between entanglement of formation, mutual information, and quantum discord, we disprove that conjecture. We further indicate a scheme to restore harmony between quantum and classical correlative capacities. The results illustrate dramatically the asymmetric nature of quantum discord and highlight some subtle and unusual features of quantum correlations.