arXiv subjects

Barbara Amaral

Publications and source records attributed to Barbara Amaral.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Effective Transition from Weak to Essential Non-Markovianity Induced by Coarse-Graining

Quantum channels generally reduce the distinguishability of quantum states, thereby constraining information transmission and processing in open quantum systems. While it is known that distinguishability can be partially recovered through suitable post-processing protocols, a systematic characterization of the maximal achievable gain has remained elusive. Here, we establish a general framework to determine and optimize the recovery of distinguishability induced by a quantum channel. We introduce an algorithm that identifies the optimal implementation of a multi-copy coarse-graining protocol applicable to arbitrary channels. Within this framework, we derive a general upper bound on the attainable distinguishability gain and quantify the performance of the protocol through its tightness relative to this bound. Our results show that collective coarse-graining can lead to effective dynamics exhibiting the operational signatures of essential non-Markovianity even when the underlying microscopic dynamics remain weakly non-Markovian. A detailed analysis reveals a nontrivial trade-off between mathematical optimality (bound saturation) and operational optimality, together with a strong dependence on both the input ensemble and the number of copies. Taken together, these findings provide a unified and quantitative framework to assess, optimize, and interpret distinguishability recovery in open quantum systems while showing how collective processing can qualitatively modify the operational memory properties of effective dynamical descriptions.

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arXiv2022

Impossibility Theorem for Extending Contextuality to Disturbing Systems

Recently there has been much interest and progress in extending the definition of contextuality to systems with disturbance. We prove that such an endeavor cannot simultaneously satisfy the following principles: (1) any deterministic system is noncontextual; (2) discarding information cannot turn a noncontextual system into a contextual one; (3) classical post-processing cannot create contextuality; (4) the joint realization of two statistically independent noncontextual systems is noncontextual. We also prove the same result without principle 4, under a stronger version of principle 1.

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arXiv2022

Investigating the Global Properties of a Resource Theory of Contextuality

Resource theories constitute a powerful theoretical framework and a tool that captures, in an abstract structure, pragmatic aspects of the most varied theories and processes. For physical theories, while this framework deals directly with questions about the concrete possibilities of carrying out tasks and processes, resource theories also make it possible to recast these already established theories on a new language, providing not only new perspectives on the potential of physical phenomena as valuable resources for technological development, for example, but they also provide insights into the very foundations of these theories. In this work, we will investigate some properties of a resource theory for quantum contextuality, an essential characteristic of quantum phenomena that ensures the impossibility of interpreting the results of quantum measurements as revealing properties that are independent of the set of measurements being made. We will present the resource theory to be studied and investigate certain global properties of this theory using tools and methods that, although already developed and studied by the community in other resource theories, had not yet been used to characterize resource theories of contextuality. In particular, we will use the so called cost and yield monotones, extending the results of reference Quantum 4, 280 (2020) to general contextuality scenarios.

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arXiv2022

From nonlocality quantifiers for behaviors to nonlocality quantifiers for states

We define an alternative way of quantifying nonlocality of states based on Bell nonlocality of behaviors, called the trace-weighted nonlocal volume. The construction is based on the nonlocal volume, a quantifier of nonlocality for states that counts the volume of the set of measurements that give rise to nonlocal behaviors when applied to this state, plus the trace distance, a quantifier of nonlocality for behaviors based on the distance between the behavior and the local set. The key difference from preceding candidates was the introduction of a quantifier of nonlocality to weight each contribution from behaviors in the nonlocal volume. We list some interesting properties of this quantifier and investigate the (2, 2, 2) and (2, 3, 2) scenarios. We show that the weak anomaly of nonlocality for the (2, 2, 3) scenario persists, but the local minimum for nonlocality with the trace-weighted nonlocal volume occurs in a different state as compared to the minimum for the non-weighted version, showing that the weak anomaly is not an intrinsic characteristic of the scenario, but is dependent of the choice of quantifier.

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arXiv2021

On Possibilistic Conditions to Contextuality and Nonlocality

Contextuality and nonlocality are non-classical properties exhibited by quantum statistics whose implications profoundly impact both foundations and applications of quantum theory. In this paper we provide some insights into logical contextuality and inequality-free proofs. The former can be understood as the possibility version of contextuality, while the latter refers to proofs of quantum contextuality/nonlocality that are not based on violations of some noncontextuality (or Bell) inequality. The present work aims to build a bridge between these two concepts from what we call possibilistic paradoxes, which are sets of possibilistic conditions whose occurrence implies contextuality/nonlocality. As main result, we demonstrate the existence of possibilistic paradoxes whose occurrence is a necessary and sufficient condition for logical contextuality in a very important class of scenarios. Finally, we discuss some interesting consequences arising from the completeness of these possibilistic paradoxes.

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arXiv2020

Investigating Coarse-Grainings and Emergent Quantum Dynamics with Four Mathematical Perspectives

With the birth of quantum information science, many tools have been developed to deal with many-body quantum systems. Although a complete description of such systems is desirable, it will not always be possible to achieve this goal, as the complexity of such description tends to increase with the number of particles. It is thus crucial to build effective quantum theories aiming to understand how the description in one scale emerges from the description of a deeper scale. This contribution explores different mathematical tools to the study of emergent effective dynamics in scenarios where a system is subject to a unitary evolution and the coarse-grained description of it is given by a CPTP map taking the original system into an \emph{effective} Hilbert space of smaller dimension. We see that a well-defined effective dynamics can only be defined when some sort of matching between the underlying unitary and the coarse-graining map is satisfied. Our main goal is to use these different tools to derive necessary and sufficient conditions for this matching in the general case.

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arXiv2020

Contextuality-by-default for behaviours in compatibility scenarios

We show that the main idea behind contextuality-by-default (CbD), i.e., the assumption that a physical measurement has to be understood as a contextual collection of random variables, is implicit in the compatibility-hypergraph approach to contextuality (CA) and use this result to develop in the latter important concepts which were introduced in the former. We introduce in CA the non-degeneracy condition, which is the analogous of consistent connectedness, and prove that this condition is, in general, weaker than non-disturbance condition. The set of non-degenerate behaviours defines a polytope, implying that one can characterize consistent connectedness using linear inequalities. We introduce the idea of extended contextuality for behaviours and prove that a behaviour is non-contextual in the standard sense iff it is non-degenerate and non-contextual in the extended sense. Finally, we use extended scenarios and behaviours to shed new light on our results.

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arXiv2019

Resource Theory of Contextuality

In addition to the important role of contextuality in foundations of quantum theory, this intrinsically quantum property has been identified as a potential resource for quantum advantage in different tasks. It is thus of fundamental importance to study contextuality from the point of view of resource theories, which provide a powerful framework for the formal treatment of a property as an operational resource. In this contribution we review recent developments towards a resource theory of contextuality and connections with operational applications of this property.

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arXiv2019

Graph Approach to Extended Contextuality

Exploring the graph approach, we restate the extended definition of noncontextuality provided by the contextuality-by-default framework. This extended definition avoids the assumption of nondisturbance, which states that whenever two contexts overlap, the marginal distribution obtained for the intersection must be the same. We show how standard tools for characterizing contextuality can also be used in this extended framework for any set of measurements and, in addition, we also provide several conditions that can be tested directly in any contextuality experiment. Our conditions reduce to traditional ones for noncontextuality if the nondisturbance assumption is satisfied.

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arXiv2018

Concentration phenomena in the geometry of Bell correlations

Bell's theorem shows that local measurements on entangled states give rise to correlations incompatible with local hidden variable models. The degree of quantum nonlocality is not maximal though, as there are even more nonlocal theories beyond quantum theory still compatible with the nonsignalling principle. In spite of decades of research, we still have a very fragmented picture of the whole geometry of these different sets of correlations. Here we employ both analytical and numerical tools to ameliorate that. First, we identify two different classes of Bell scenarios where the nonsignalling correlations can behave very differently: in one case, the correlations are generically quantum and nonlocal while on the other quite the opposite happens as the correlations are generically classical and local. Second, by randomly sampling over nonsignalling correlations, we compute the distribution of a nonlocality quantifier based on the trace distance to the local set. With that, we conclude that the nonlocal correlations can show concentration phenomena: their distribution is peaked at a distance from the local set that increases both with the number of parts or measurements being performed.

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arXiv2018

Roughness as Classicality Indicator of a Quantum State

We define a new quantifier of classicality for a quantum state, the Roughness, which is given by the $\mathcal{L}^2 (\R^2)$ distance between Wigner and Husimi functions. We show that the Roughness is bounded and therefore it is a useful tool for comparison between different quantum states for single bosonic systems. The state classification via the Roughness is not binary, but rather it is continuous in the interval [0,1], being the state more classic as the Roughness approaches to zero, and more quantum when it is closer to the unity. The Roughness is maximum for Fock states when its number of photons is arbitrarily large, and also for squeezed states at the maximum compression limit. On the other hand, the Roughness reaches its minimum value for thermal states at infinite temperature and, more generally, for infinite entropy states. The Roughness of a coherent state is slightly below one half, so we may say that it is more a classical state than a quantum one. Another important result is that the Roughness performs well for discriminating both pure and mixed states. Since the Roughness measures the inherent quantumness of a state, we propose another function, the Dynamic Distance Measure (DDM), which is suitable for measure how much quantum is a dynamics. Using DDM, we studied the quartic oscillator, and we observed that there is a certain complementarity between dynamics and state, i.e. when dynamics becomes more quantum, the Roughness of the state decreases, while the Roughness grows as the dynamics becomes less quantum.

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arXiv2017

Resource theory of contextuality for arbitrary prepare-and-measure experiments

Contextuality has been identified as a potential resource responsible for the quantum advantage in several tasks. It is then necessary to develop a resource-theoretic framework for contextuality, both in its standard and generalized forms. Here we provide a formal resource-theoretic approach for generalized contextuality based on a physically motivated set of free operations with an explicit parametrisation. Then, using an efficient linear programming characterization for the contextual set of prepared-and-measured statistics, we adapt known resource quantifiers for contextuality and nonlocality to obtain natural monotones for generalized contextuality in arbitrary prepare-and-measure experiments.

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arXiv2017

Necessary Conditions for Extended Noncontextuality in General Sets of Random Variables

We explore the graph approach to contextuality to restate the extended definition of noncontextuality as given by J. Kujala et. al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 150401 (2015)] using graph-theoretical terms. This extended definition avoids the assumption of the pre-sheaf or non-disturbance condition, which states that if two contexts overlap, then the marginal distribution obtained for the intersection must be the same, a restriction that will never be perfectly satisfied in real experiments. With this we are able to derive necessary conditions for extended noncontextuality for any set of random variables based on the geometrical aspects of the graph approach, which can be tested directly with experimental data in any contextuality experiment and which reduce to traditional necessary conditions for noncontextuality if the non-disturbance condition is satisfied.

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arXiv2017

On geometrical aspects of the graph approach to contextuality

The connection between contextuality and graph theory has led to many developments in the field. In particular, the sets of probability distributions in many contextuality scenarios can be described using well known convex sets from graph theory, leading to a beautiful geometric characterization of such sets. This geometry can also be explored in the definition of contextuality quantifiers based on geometric distances, which is important for the resource theory of contextuality, developed after the recognition of contextuality as a potential resource for quantum computation. In this paper we review the geometric aspects of contextuality and use it to define several quantifiers, which have the advantage of being applicable to the exclusivity approach to contextuality, where previously defined quantifiers do not fit.

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arXiv2017

Noncontextual wirings

Contextuality is a fundamental feature of quantum theory and is necessary for quantum computation and communication. Serious steps have therefore been taken towards a formal framework for contextuality as an operational resource. However, the most important component for a resource theory - a concrete, explicit form for the free operations of contextuality - was still missing. Here we provide such a component by introducing noncontextual wirings: a physically-motivated class of contextuality-free operations with a friendly parametrization. We characterize them completely for the general case of black-box measurement devices with arbitrarily many inputs and outputs. As applications, we show that the relative entropy of contextuality is a contextuality monotone and that maximally contextual boxes that serve as contextuality bits exist for a broad class of scenarios. Our results complete a unified resource-theoretic framework for contextuality and Bell nonlocality.

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arXiv2015

Quantum theory allows for absolute maximal contextuality

Contextuality is a fundamental feature of quantum theory and a necessary resource for quantum computation and communication. It is therefore important to investigate how large contextuality can be in quantum theory. Linear contextuality witnesses can be expressed as a sum $S$ of $n$ probabilities, and the independence number $α$ and the Tsirelson-like number $\vartheta$ of the corresponding exclusivity graph are, respectively, the maximum of $S$ for noncontextual theories and for the theory under consideration. A theory allows for absolute maximal contextuality if it has scenarios in which $\vartheta/α$ approaches $n$. Here we show that quantum theory allows for absolute maximal contextuality despite what is suggested by the examination of the quantum violations of Bell and noncontextuality inequalities considered in the past. Our proof is not constructive and does not single out explicit scenarios. Nevertheless, we identify scenarios in which quantum theory allows for almost absolute maximal contextuality.

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arXiv2015

The Exclusivity Principle and the Set of Quantum Correlations

The most promising candidate for being the fundamental principle of quantum contextuality is the Exclusivity principle, which states that the sum of the probabilities of a set of pairwise exclusive events cannot exceed 1. By itself, the Exclusivity principle singles out the maximum quantum value for some important Bell and noncontextuality inequalities. We can get better results if we apply the E principle to more sophisticated scenarios. This happens because this principle exhibits activation effects: a distribution satisfying this principles does not necessarily satisfy it when combined with other distributions. Activation effects can be used to prove that the Exclusivity principle singles out the set of quantum distributions for the most simple noncontextuality inequality. It is still not known if the exclusivity principle solves the problem of explaining quantum contextuality completely, but many results have been proven that support the conjecture that it might. The main purpose of this thesis is to discuss in detail the situations in which the E principle can be used to rule out distributions outside the quantum set.

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arXiv2013

The exclusivity principle forbids sets of correlations larger than the quantum set

We show that the exclusivity (E) principle singles out the set of quantum correlations associated to any exclusivity graph assuming the set of quantum correlations for the complementary graph. Moreover, we prove that, for self-complementary graphs, the E principle, by itself (i.e., without further assumptions), excludes any set of correlations strictly larger than the quantum set. Finally, we prove that, for vertex-transitive graphs, the E principle singles out the maximum value for the quantum correlations assuming only the quantum maximum for the complementary graph. This opens the door for testing the impossibility of higher-than-quantum correlations in experiments.

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