Optimal strategies for sending information through a quantum channel

Quantum states can he used to encode the information contained in a directi on, i.e., in a unit vector. We present the best encoding procedure when the quantum state is made up of N spins (qubits). We find that the quality of this optimal procedure, which we quantify in terms of the fidelity, depends solely on the dimension of the encoding space. We also investigate the use of spatial rotations on a quantum state, which provide a natural and less demanding encoding. In this case we prove that the fidelity is directly rel ated to the largest zeros of the Legendre and Jacobi polynomials. We also d iscuss our results in terms of the information gain.