  We study the amount of communication needed for two parties to transform some
given joint pure state into another one, either exactly or with some fidelity.
Specifically, we present a method to lower bound this communication cost even
when the amount of entanglement does not increase. Moreover, the bound applies
even if the initial state is supplemented with unlimited entanglement in the
form of EPR pairs, and the communication is allowed to be quantum mechanical.
  We then apply the method to the determination of the communication cost of
asymptotic entanglement concentration and dilution. While concentration is
known to require no communication whatsoever, the best known protocol for
dilution, discovered by Lo and Popescu [Phys. Rev. Lett. 83(7):1459--1462,
1999], requires a number of bits to be exchanged which is of the order of the
square root of the number of EPR pairs. Here we prove a matching lower bound of
the same asymptotic order, demonstrating the optimality of the Lo-Popescu
protocol up to a constant factor and establishing the existence of a
fundamental asymmetry between the concentration and dilution tasks.
  We also discuss states for which the minimal communication cost is
proportional to their entanglement, such as the states recently introduced in
the context of ``embezzling entanglement'' [W. van Dam and P. Hayden,
quant-ph/0201041].
