Convolutional entanglement distillation

We develop a theory of entanglement distillation that exploits a convolutional coding structure. We provide a method for converting an arbitrary classical binary or quaternary convolutional code into a convolutional entanglement distillation protocol. The yield and error-correcting properties of such a protocol depend respectively on the rate and error-correcting properties of the imported classical convolutional code. In a convolutional entanglement distillation protocol, two parties sharing noisy ebits can distill noiseless ebits “online” as they acquire more noisy ebits and this online protocol reduces decoding complexity.