arXiv subjects

Elie Wolfe

Publications and source records attributed to Elie Wolfe.

50 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Quantifying Bell: the Resource Theory of Nonclassicality of Common-Cause Boxes

We take a resource-theoretic approach to the problem of quantifying nonclassicality in Bell scenarios. The resources are conceptualized as probabilistic processes from the setting variables to the outcome variables having a particular causal structure, namely, one wherein the wings are only connected by a common cause. We term them "common-cause boxes". We define the distinction between classical and nonclassical resources in terms of whether or not a classical causal model can explain the correlations. One can then quantify the relative nonclassicality of resources by considering their interconvertibility relative to the set of operations that can be implemented using a classical common cause (which correspond to local operations and shared randomness). We prove that the set of free operations forms a polytope, which in turn allows us to derive an efficient algorithm for deciding whether one resource can be converted to another. We moreover define two distinct monotones with simple closed-form expressions in the two-party binary-setting binary-outcome scenario, and use these to reveal various properties of the pre-order of resources, including a lower bound on the cardinality of any complete set of monotones. In particular, we show that the information contained in the degrees of violation of facet-defining Bell inequalities is not sufficient for quantifying nonclassicality, even though it is sufficient for witnessing nonclassicality. Finally, we show that the continuous set of convexly extremal quantumly realizable correlations are all at the top of the pre-order of quantumly realizable correlations. In addition to providing new insights on Bell nonclassicality, our work also sets the stage for quantifying nonclassicality in more general causal networks.

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arXiv2020

Algebraic and geometric properties of local transformations

Some properties of physical systems can be characterized from their correlations. In that framework, subsystems are viewed as abstract devices that receive measurement settings as inputs and produce measurement outcomes as outputs. The labeling convention used to describe these inputs and outputs does not affect the physics; and relabelings are easily implemented by rewiring the input and output ports of the devices. However, a more general class of operations can be achieved by using correlated preprocessing and postprocessing of the inputs and outputs. In contrast to relabelings, some of these operations irreversibly lose information about the underlying device. Other operations are reversible, but modify the number of cardinality of inputs and/or outputs. In this work, we single out the set of deterministic local maps as the one satisfying two equivalent constructions: an operational definition from causality, and an axiomatic definition reminiscent of the definition of quantum completely positive trace-preserving maps. We then study the algebraic properties of that set. Surprisingly, the study of these fundamental properties has deep and practical applications. First, the invariant subspaces of these transformations directly decompose the space of correlations/Bell inequalities into nonsignaling, signaling and normalization components. This impacts the classification of Bell and causal inequalities, and the construction of assemblages/witnesses in steering scenarios. Second, the left and right invertible deterministic local operations provide an operational generalization of the liftings introduced by Pironio [J. Math. Phys., 46(6):062112 (2005)]. Not only Bell-local, but also causal inequalities can be lifted; liftings also apply to correlation boxes in a variety of scenarios.

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arXiv2019

Quantum violations in the Instrumental scenario and their relations to the Bell scenario

The causal structure of any experiment implies restrictions on the observable correlations between measurement outcomes, which are different for experiments exploiting classical, quantum, or post-quantum resources. In the study of Bell nonlocality, these differences have been explored in great detail for more and more involved causal structures. Here, we go in the opposite direction and identify the simplest causal structure which exhibits a separation between classical, quantum, and post-quantum correlations. It arises in the so-called Instrumental scenario, known from classical causal models. We derive inequalities for this scenario and show that they are closely related to well-known Bell inequalities, such as the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality, which enables us to easily identify their classical, quantum, and post-quantum bounds as well as strategies violating the first two. The relations that we uncover imply that the quantum or post-quantum advantages witnessed by the violation of our Instrumental inequalities are not fundamentally different from those witnessed by the violations of standard inequalities in the usual Bell scenario. However, non-classical tests in the Instrumental scenario require fewer input choices than their Bell scenario counterpart, which may have potential implications for device-independent protocols.

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arXiv2019

The Inflation Technique for Causal Inference with Latent Variables

The problem of causal inference is to determine if a given probability distribution on observed variables is compatible with some causal structure. The difficult case is when the causal structure includes latent variables. We here introduce the $\textit{inflation technique}$ for tackling this problem. An inflation of a causal structure is a new causal structure that can contain multiple copies of each of the original variables, but where the ancestry of each copy mirrors that of the original. To every distribution of the observed variables that is compatible with the original causal structure, we assign a family of marginal distributions on certain subsets of the copies that are compatible with the inflated causal structure. It follows that compatibility constraints for the inflation can be translated into compatibility constraints for the original causal structure. Even if the constraints at the level of inflation are weak, such as observable statistical independences implied by disjoint causal ancestry, the translated constraints can be strong. We apply this method to derive new inequalities whose violation by a distribution witnesses that distribution's incompatibility with the causal structure (of which Bell inequalities and Pearl's instrumental inequality are prominent examples). We describe an algorithm for deriving all such inequalities for the original causal structure that follow from ancestral independences in the inflation. For three observed binary variables with pairwise common causes, it yields inequalities that are stronger in at least some aspects than those obtainable by existing methods. We also describe an algorithm that derives a weaker set of inequalities but is more efficient. Finally, we discuss which inflations are such that the inequalities one obtains from them remain valid even for quantum (and post-quantum) generalizations of the notion of a causal model.

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arXiv2018

Almost Quantum Correlations are Inconsistent with Specker's Principle

Ernst Specker considered a particular feature of quantum theory to be especially fundamental, namely that pairwise joint measurability of sharp measurements implies their global joint measurability (https://vimeo.com/52923835). To date, Specker's principle seemed incapable of singling out quantum theory from the space of all general probabilistic theories. In particular, its well-known consequence for experimental statistics, the principle of consistent exclusivity, does not rule out the set of correlations known as almost quantum, which is strictly larger than the set of quantum correlations. Here we show that, contrary to the popular belief, Specker's principle cannot be satisfied in any theory that yields almost quantum correlations.

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arXiv2018

Geometry of the set of quantum correlations

It is well known that correlations predicted by quantum mechanics cannot be explained by any classical (local-realistic) theory. The relative strength of quantum and classical correlations is usually studied in the context of Bell inequalities, but this tells us little about the geometry of the quantum set of correlations. In other words, we do not have good intuition about what the quantum set actually looks like. In this paper we study the geometry of the quantum set using standard tools from convex geometry. We find explicit examples of rather counter-intuitive features in the simplest non-trivial Bell scenario (two parties, two inputs and two outputs) and illustrate them using 2-dimensional slice plots. We also show that even more complex features appear in Bell scenarios with more inputs or more parties. Finally, we discuss the limitations that the geometry of the quantum set imposes on the task of self-testing.

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arXiv2017

Multipartite Composition of Contextuality Scenarios

Contextuality is a particular quantum phenomenon that has no analogue in classical probability theory. Given two independent systems, a natural question is how to represent such a situation as a single test space. In other words, how separate contextuality scenarios combine into a joint scenario. Under the premise that the the allowed probabilistic models satisfy the No Signalling principle, Foulis and Randall defined the unique possible way to compose two contextuality scenarios. When composing strictly-more than two test spaces, however, a variety of possible composition methods have been conceived. Nevertheless, all these formally-distinct composition methods appear to give rise to observationally equivalent scenarios, in the sense that the different compositions all allow precisely the same sets of classical and quantum probabilistic models. This raises the question of whether this property of invariance-under-composition-method is special to classical and quantum probabilistic models, or if it generalizes to other probabilistic models as well, our particular focus being $\mathcal{Q}_1$ models. $\mathcal{Q}_1$ models are physically important since, when applied to scenarios constructed by a particular composition rule, coincide with the well-defined "Almost Quantum Correlations". In this work we see that some composition rules, however, give rise to scenarios with inequivalent allowed sets of $\mathcal{Q}_1$ models. We find that the non-trivial dependence of $\mathcal{Q}_1$ models on the choice of composition method is apparently an artifact of failure of those composition rules to capture the orthogonality relations given by the Local Orthogonality principle. We prove that $\mathcal{Q}_1$ models satisfy invariance-under-composition-method for all the constructive compositions protocols which do capture this notion of Local Orthogonality.

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arXiv2017

Deriving robust noncontextuality inequalities from algebraic proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem: the Peres-Mermin square

When a measurement is compatible with each of two other measurements that are incompatible with one another, these define distinct contexts for the given measurement. The Kochen-Specker theorem rules out models of quantum theory that satisfy a particular assumption of context-independence: that sharp measurements are assigned outcomes both deterministically and independently of their context. This notion of noncontextuality is not suited to a direct experimental test because realistic measurements always have some degree of unsharpness due to noise. However, a generalized notion of noncontextuality has been proposed that is applicable to any experimental procedure, including unsharp measurements, but also preparations as well, and for which a quantum no-go result still holds. According to this notion, the model need only specify a probability distribution over the outcomes of a measurement in a context-independent way, rather than specifying a particular outcome. It also implies novel constraints of context-independence for the representation of preparations. In this article, we describe a general technique for translating proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem into inequality constraints on realistic experimental statistics, the violation of which witnesses the impossibility of a noncontextual model. We focus on algebraic state-independent proofs, using the Peres-Mermin square as our illustrative example. Our technique yields the necessary and sufficient conditions for a particular set of correlations (between the preparations and the measurements) to admit a noncontextual model. The inequalities thus derived are demonstrably robust to noise. We specify how experimental data must be processed in order to achieve a test of these inequalities. We also provide a criticism of prior proposals for experimental tests of noncontextuality based on the Peres-Mermin square.

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arXiv2016

Improving the efficiency of joint remote state preparation in noisy environment with weak measurement

Quantum secure communication provides a new way for protecting the security of information. As an important component of quantum secure communication, remote state preparation (RSP) can securely transmit a quantum state from a sender to a remote receiver. The existence of quantum noise severely affects the security and reliability of quantum communication system. In this paper, we study the method for improving the efficiency of joint RSP (JRSP) subjected to noise with the help of weak measurement and its reversal measurement. Taking a GHZ based deterministic JRSP as an example, we utilize the technique of weak measurement and its reversal to suppress the effect of the amplitude-damping noise firstly. Our study shows that the fidelity of the output state can be improved in the amplitude-damping noise. We also study the effect of weak measurement and its reversal in other three types of noise usually encountered in real-world, namely, the bit-flip, phase-flip (phase-damping) and depolarizing noise. Our results show that the weak measurement has no effect for suppressing the bit-flip and phase-flip (phase-damping) noise, while has slight effect for suppressing the depolarizing noise. Our study is suitable for JRSP and RSP, and will be helpful for improving the efficiency of multiparticle entanglement based quantum secure communication in real implementation.

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arXiv2016

Identifying Nonconvexity in the Sets of Limited-Dimension Quantum Correlations

Quantum theory is known to be nonlocal in the sense that separated parties can perform measurements on a shared quantum state to obtain correlated probability distributions, which cannot be achieved if the parties share only classical randomness. Here we find that the set of distributions compatible with sharing quantum states subject to some sufficiently restricted dimension is neither convex nor a superset of the classical distributions. We examine the relationship between quantum distributions associated with a dimensional constraint and classical distributions associated with limited shared randomness. We prove that quantum correlations are convex for certain finite dimension in certain Bell scenarios and that they sometimes offer a dimensional advantage in realizing local distributions. We also consider if there exist Bell scenarios where the set of quantum correlations is never convex with finite dimensionality.

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arXiv2014

Quantum Apices: Identifying Limits of Entanglement, Nonlocality, & Contextuality

This work develops analytic methods to quantitatively demarcate quantum reality from its subset of classical phenomenon, as well as from the superset of general probabilistic theories. Regarding quantum nonlocality, we discuss how to determine the quantum limit of Bell-type linear inequalities. In contrast to semidefinite programming approaches, our method allows for the consideration of inequalities with abstract weights, by means of leveraging the Hermiticity of quantum states. Recognizing that classical correlations correspond to measurements made on separable states, we also introduce a practical method for obtaining sufficient separability criteria. We specifically vet the candidacy of driven and undriven superradiance as schema for entanglement generation. We conclude by reviewing current approaches to quantum contextuality, emphasizing the operational distinction between nonlocal and contextual quantum statistics. We utilize our abstractly-weighted linear quantum bounds to explicitly demonstrate a set of conditional probability distributions which are simultaneously compatible with quantum contextuality while being incompatible with quantum nonlocality. It is noted that this novel statistical regime implies an experimentally-testable target for the Consistent Histories theory of quantum gravity.

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arXiv2014

Spin Squeezing by means of Driven Superradiance

We discuss the possibility of generating spin squeezed states by means of driven superradiance, analytically affirming and broadening the finding in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 080502 (2013)]. In an earlier paper [Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 140402 (2014)] the authors determined that spontaneous purely-dissipative Dicke model superradiance failed to generate any entanglement over the course of the system's time evolution. In this article we show that by adding a driving field, however, the Dicke model system can be tuned to evolve toward an entangled steady state. We discuss how to optimize the driving frequency to maximize the entanglement. We show that the resulting entanglement is fairly strong, in that it leads to spin squeezing.

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arXiv2014

Certifying Separability in Symmetric Mixed States, and Superradiance

Separability criteria are typically of the necessary, but not sufficient, variety, in that satisfying some separability criterion, such as positivity of eigenvalues under partial transpose, does not strictly imply separability. Certifying separability amounts to proving the existence of a decomposition of a target mixed state into some convex combination of separable states; determining the existence of such a decomposition is "hard." We show that it is effective to ask, instead, if the target mixed state "fits" some preconstructed separable form, in that one can generate a sufficient separability criterion relevant to all target states in some family by ensuring enough degrees of freedom in the preconstructed separable form. We demonstrate this technique by inducing a sufficient criterion for "diagonally symmetric" states of N qubits. A sufficient separability criterion opens the door to study precisely how entanglement is (not) formed; we use ours to prove that, counterintuitively, entanglement is not generated in idealized Dicke model superradiance despite its exemplification of many-body effects. We introduce a quantification of the extent to which a given preconstructed parametrization comprises the set of all separable states; for "diagonally symmetric" states our preconstruction is shown to be fully complete. This implies that our criterion is necessary in addition to sufficient, among other ramifications which we explore.

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arXiv2012

New Quantum Bounds for Inequalities involving Marginal Expectations

We review, correct, and develop an algorithm which determines arbitrary Quantum Bounds, based on the seminal work of Tsirelson [Lett. Math. Phys. 4, 93 (1980)]. The potential of this algorithm is demonstrated by deriving both new number-valued Quantum Bounds, as well as identifying a new class of function-valued Quantum Bounds. Those results facilitate an 8-dimensional Volume Analysis of Quantum Mechanics which extends the work of Cabello [PRA 72 (2005)]. We contrast the Quantum Volume defined be these new bounds to that of Macroscopic Locality, defined by the inequalities corresponding to the first level of the hierarchy of Navascues et al [NJP 10 (2008)], proving our function-valued Quantum Bounds to be more complete.

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