Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Jędrzej Kaniewski

Publications and source records attributed to Jędrzej Kaniewski.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Machine learning meets the CHSH scenario

In this work, we perform a comprehensive study of the machine learning (ML) methods for the purpose of characterising the quantum set of correlations. As our main focus is on assessing the usefulness and effectiveness of the ML approach, we focus exclusively on the CHSH scenario, both the 4-dimensional variant, for which an analytical solution is known, and the 8-dimensional variant, for which no analytical solution is known, but numerical approaches are relatively well understood. We consider a wide selection of approaches, ranging from simple data science models to dense neural networks. The two classes of models that perform well are support vector machines and dense neural networks, and they are the main focus of this work. We conclude that while it is relatively easy to achieve good performance on average, it is hard to train a model that performs well on the "hard" cases, i.e., points in the vicinity of the boundary of the quantum set. Sadly, these are precisely the cases which are interesting from the academic point of view. In order to improve performance on hard cases one must, especially for the 8-dimensional problem, resort to a tailored choice of training data, which means that we are implicitly feeding our intuition and biases into the model. We feel that this is an important and often overlooked aspect of applying ML models to academic problems, where data generation or data selection is performed according to some implicit subjective criteria. In this way, it is possible to unconsciously steer our model, so that it exhibits features that we are interested in seeing. Hence, special care must be taken while determining whether ML methods can be considered objective and unbiased in the context of academic problems.

quant-ph↗

A mathematical foundation for self-testing: Lifting common assumptions

In this work we study the phenomenon of self-testing from the first principles, aiming to place this versatile concept on a rigorous mathematical footing. Self-testing allows a classical verifier to infer a quantum mechanical description of untrusted quantum devices that she interacts with in a black-box manner. Somewhat contrary to the black-box paradigm, existing self-testing results tend to presuppose conditions that constrain the operation of the untrusted devices. A common assumption is that these devices perform a projective measurement of a pure quantum state. Naturally, in the absence of any prior knowledge it would be appropriate to model these devices as measuring a mixed state using POVM measurements, since the purifying/dilating spaces could be held by the environment or an adversary. We prove a general theorem allowing to remove these assumptions, thereby promoting most existing self-testing results to their assumption-free variants. On the other hand, we pin-point situations where assumptions cannot be lifted without loss of generality. As a key (counter)example we identify a quantum correlation which is a self-test only if certain assumptions are made. Remarkably, this is also the first example of a correlation that cannot be implemented using projective measurements on a bipartite state of full Schmidt rank. Finally, we compare existing self-testing definitions, establishing many equivalences as well as identifying subtle differences.

quant-ph↗

Biased Random Access Codes

A random access code (RAC) is a communication task in which the sender encodes a random message into a shorter one to be decoded by the receiver so that a randomly chosen character of the original message is recovered with some probability. Both the message and the character to be recovered are assumed to be uniformly distributed. In this paper, we extend this protocol by allowing more general distributions of these inputs, which alters the encoding and decoding strategies optimizing the protocol performance, with either classical or quantum resources. We approach the problem of optimizing the performance of these biased RACs with both numerical and analytical tools. On the numerical front, we present algorithms that allow a numerical evaluation of the optimal performance over both classical and quantum strategies and provide a Python package designed to implement them, called RAC-tools. We then use this numerical tool to investigate single-parameter families of biased RACs in the $n^2 \mapsto 1$ and $2^d \mapsto 1$ scenarios. For RACs in the $n^2 \mapsto 1$ scenario, we derive a general upper bound for the cases in which the inputs are not correlated, which coincides with the quantum value for $n=2$ and, in some cases for $n=3$. Moreover, it is shown that attaining this upper bound self-tests pairs or triples of rank-1 projective measurements, respectively. An analogous upper bound is derived for the value of RACs in the $2^d \mapsto 1$ scenario, which is shown to be always attainable using mutually unbiased measurements if the distribution of input strings is unbiased.

quant-ph↗

Mutually Unbiased Measurements, Hadamard Matrices, and Superdense Coding

Mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) are highly symmetric bases on complex Hilbert spaces, and the corresponding rank-1 projective measurements are ubiquitous in quantum information theory. In this work, we study a recently introduced generalization of MUBs called mutually unbiased measurements (MUMs). These measurements inherit the essential property of complementarity from MUBs, but the Hilbert space dimension is no longer required to match the number of outcomes. This operational complementarity property renders MUMs highly useful for device-independent quantum information processing. It has been shown that MUMs are strictly more general than MUBs. In this work we provide a complete proof of the characterization of MUMs that are direct sums of MUBs. We then proceed to construct new examples of MUMs that are not direct sums of MUBs. A crucial technical tool for these construction is a correspondence with quaternionic Hadamard matrices, which allows us to map known examples of such matrices to MUMs that are not direct sums of MUBs. Furthermore, we show that -- in stark contrast with MUBs -- the number of MUMs for a fixed outcome number is unbounded. Next, we focus on the use of MUMs in quantum communication. We demonstrate how any pair of MUMs with d outcomes defines a d-dimensional superdense coding protocol. Using MUMs that are not direct sums of MUBs, we disprove a recent conjecture due to Nayak and Yuen on the rigidity of superdense coding for infinitely many dimensions. The superdense coding protocols arising in the refutation reveal how shared entanglement may be used in a manner heretofore unknown.

quant-ph↗

Extremal points of the quantum set in the CHSH scenario: conjectured analytical solution

Quantum mechanics may revolutionise many aspects of modern information processing as it promises significant advantages in several fields such as cryptography, computing and metrology. Quantum cryptography for instance allows us to implement protocols which are device-independent, i.e. they can be proven security under fewer assumptions. These protocols rely on using devices producing non-local statistics and ideally these statistics would correspond to extremal points of the quantum set in the probability space. However, even in the CHSH scenario (the simplest non-trivial Bell scenario) we do not have a full understanding of the extremal quantum points. In fact, there are only a couple of analytic families of such points. Our first contribution is to introduce two new families of analytical quantum extremal points by providing solutions to two new families of Bell functionals. In the second part we focus on developing an analytical criteria for extremality in the CHSH scenario. A well-known Tsirelson-Landau-Masanes criterion only applies to points with uniform marginals, but a generalisation has been suggested in a sequence of works by Satoshi Ishizaka. We combine these conditions into a standalone conjecture, explore their technical details and discuss their suitability. Based on the understanding acquired, we propose a new set of conditions with an elegant mathematical form and an intuitive physical interpretation. Finally, we verify that both sets of conditions give correct predictions on the new families of quantum extremal points.

quant-ph↗

Optimality of any pair of incompatible rank-one projective measurements for some non-trivial Bell inequality

Bell non-locality represents one of the most striking departures of quantum mechanics from classical physics. It shows that correlations between space-like separated systems allowed by quantum mechanics are stronger than those present in any classical theory. In a recent work [Sci. Adv. 7, eabc3847 (2021)], a family of Bell functionals tailored to mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) is proposed. For these functionals, the maximal quantum violation is achieved if the two measurements performed by one of the parties are constructed out of MUBs of a fixed dimension. Here, we generalize this construction to an arbitrary incompatible pair of rank-one projective measurements. By constructing a new family of Bell functionals, we show that for any such pair there exists a Bell inequality that is maximally violated by this pair. Moreover, when investigating the robustness of these violations to noise, we demonstrate that the realization which is most robust to noise is not generated by MUBs.

quant-ph↗

Self-testing entangled measurements in quantum networks

Self-testing refers to the possibility of characterizing an unknown quantum device based only on the observed statistics. Here we develop methods for self-testing entangled quantum measurements, a key element for quantum networks. Our approach is based on the natural assumption that separated physical sources in a network should be considered independent. This provides a natural formulation of the problem of certifying entangled measurements. Considering the setup of entanglement swapping, we derive a robust self-test for the Bell-state measurement, tolerating noise levels up to 5%. We also discuss generalizations to other entangled measurements.

quant-ph↗

Quantifying incompatibility of quantum measurements through non-commutativity

The existence of incompatible measurements, i.e. measurements which cannot be performed simultaneously on a single copy of a quantum state, constitutes an important distinction between quantum mechanics and classical theories. While incompatibility might at first glance seem like an obstacle, it turns to be a necessary ingredient to achieve the so-called quantum advantage in various operational tasks like random access codes or key distribution. To improve our understanding of how to quantify incompatibility of quantum measurements, we define and explore a family of incompatibility measures based on non-commutativity. We investigate some basic properties of these measures, we show that they satisfy some natural information-processing requirements and we fully characterize the pairs which achieve the highest incompatibility (in a fixed dimension). We also consider the behavior of our measures under different types of compositions. Finally, to link our new measures to existing results, we relate them to a robustness-based incompatibility measure and two operational scenarios: random access codes and entropic uncertainty relations.

quant-ph↗

Near-maximal two-photon entanglement for quantum communications at 2.1 $μ$m

Owing to a reduced solar background and low propagation losses in the atmosphere, the 2- to 2.5-$μ$m waveband is a promising candidate for daylight quantum communication. This spectral region also offers low losses and low dispersion in hollow-core fibers and in silicon waveguides. We demonstrate for the first time near-maximally entangled photon pairs at 2.1 $μ$m that could support device independent quantum key distribution (DIQKD) assuming sufficiently high channel efficiencies. The state corresponds to a positive secure-key rate (0.254 bits/pair, with a quantum bit error rate of 3.8%) based on measurements in a laboratory setting with minimal channel loss and transmission distance. This is promising for the future implementation of DIQKD at 2.1 $μ$m.

quant-ph↗

Maximal randomness from partially entangled states

We investigate how much randomness can be extracted from a generic partially entangled pure state of two qubits in a device-independent setting, where a Bell test is used to certify the correct functioning of the apparatus. For any such state, we first show that two bits of randomness are always attainable both if projective measurements are used to generate the randomness globally or if a nonprojective measurement is used to generate the randomness locally. We then prove that the maximum amount of randomness that can be generated using nonprojective measurements globally is restricted to between approximately 3.58 and 3.96 bits. The upper limit rules out that a bound of four bits potentially obtainable with extremal qubit measurements can be attained. We point out this is a consequence of the fact that nonprojective qubit measurements with four outcomes can only be self-tested to a limited degree in a Bell experiment.

quant-ph↗

Mutually unbiased bases and symmetric informationally complete measurements in Bell experiments

Mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) and symmetric informationally complete projectors (SICs) are crucial to many conceptual and practical aspects of quantum theory. Here, we develop their role in quantum nonlocality by: i) introducing families of Bell inequalities that are maximally violated by $d$-dimensional MUBs and SICs respectively, ii) proving device-independent certification of natural operational notions of MUBs and SICs, and iii) using MUBs and SICs to develop optimal-rate and nearly optimal-rate protocols for device independent quantum key distribution and device-independent quantum random number generation respectively. Moreover, we also present the first example of an extremal point of the quantum set of correlations which admits physically inequivalent quantum realisations. Our results elaborately demonstrate the foundational and practical relevance of the two most important discrete Hilbert space structures to the field of quantum nonlocality.

quant-ph↗

A weak form of self-testing

The concept of self-testing (or rigidity) refers to the fact that for certain Bell inequalities the maximal violation can be achieved in an essentially unique manner. In this work we present a family of Bell inequalities which are maximally violated by multiple inequivalent quantum realisations. We completely characterise the quantum realisations achieving the maximal violation and we show that each of them requires a maximally entangled state of two qubits. This implies the existence of a new, weak form of self-testing in which the maximal violation allows us to identify the state, but does not fully determine the measurements. From the geometric point of view the set of probability points that saturate the quantum bound is a line segment. We then focus on a particular member of the family and show that the self-testing statement is robust, i.e. that observing a non-maximal violation allows us to make a quantitative statement about the unknown state. To achieve this we present a new construction of extraction channels and analyse their performance. For completeness we provide two independent approaches: analytical and numerical. The noise robustness, i.e. the amount of white noise at which the bound becomes trivial, of the analytical bound is rather small (~0.06%), but the numerical method takes us into an experimentally-relevant regime (~5%). We conclude by investigating the amount of randomness that can be certified using these Bell violations. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that the qualitative behaviour resembles the behaviour of rigid inequalities like the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality. This shows that at least for some device-independent applications rigidity is not a necessary ingredient.

quant-ph↗

Incompatibility robustness of quantum measurements: a unified framework

In quantum mechanics performing a measurement is an invasive process which generally disturbs the system. Due to this phenomenon, there exist incompatible quantum measurements, i.e., measurements that cannot be simultaneously performed on a single copy of the system. It is then natural to ask what the most incompatible quantum measurements are. To answer this question, several measures have been proposed to quantify how incompatible a set of measurements is, however their properties are not well-understood. In this work, we develop a general framework that encompasses all the commonly used measures of incompatibility based on robustness to noise. Moreover, we propose several conditions that a measure of incompatibility should satisfy, and investigate whether the existing measures comply with them. We find that some of the widely used measures do not fulfil these basic requirements. We also show that when looking for the most incompatible pairs of measurements, we obtain different answers depending on the exact measure. For one of the measures, we analytically prove that projective measurements onto two mutually unbiased bases are among the most incompatible pairs in every dimension. However, for some of the remaining measures we find that some peculiar measurements turn out to be even more incompatible.

quant-ph↗

Self-testing mutually unbiased bases in the prepare-and-measure scenario

Mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) constitute the canonical example of incompatible quantum measurements. One standard application of MUBs is the task known as quantum random access code (QRAC), in which classical information is encoded in a quantum system, and later part of it is recovered by performing a quantum measurement. We analyse a specific class of QRACs, known as the $2^{d} \to 1$ QRAC, in which two classical dits are encoded in a $d$-dimensional quantum system. It is known that among rank-1 projective measurements MUBs give the best performance. We show (for every $d$) that this cannot be improved by employing non-projective measurements. Moreover, we show that the optimal performance can only be achieved by measurements which are rank-1 projective and mutually unbiased. In other words, the $2^{d} \to 1$ QRAC is a self-test for a pair of MUBs in the prepare-and-measure scenario. To make the self-testing statement robust we propose measures which characterise how well a pair of (not necessarily projective) measurements satisfies the MUB conditions and show how to estimate these measures from the observed performance. Similarly, we derive explicit bounds on operational quantities like the incompatibility robustness or the amount of uncertainty generated by the uncharacterised measurements. For low dimensions the robustness of our bounds is comparable to that of currently available technology, which makes them relevant for existing experiments. Lastly, our results provide essential support for a recently proposed method for solving the long-standing existence problem of MUBs.

quant-ph↗

Robust self-testing of two-qubit states

It is well-known that observing nonlocal correlations allows us to draw conclusions about the quantum systems under consideration. In some cases this yields a characterisation which is essentially complete, a phenomenon known as self-testing. Self-testing becomes particularly interesting if we can make the statement robust, so that it can be applied to a real experimental setup. For the simplest self-testing scenarios the most robust bounds come from the method based on operator inequalities. In this work we elaborate on this idea and apply it to the family of tilted CHSH inequalities. These inequalities are maximally violated by partially entangled two-qubit states and our goal is to estimate the quality of the state based only on the observed violation. For these inequalities we have reached a candidate bound and while we have not been able to prove it analytically, we have gathered convincing numerical evidence that it holds. Our final contribution is a proof that in the usual formulation, the CHSH inequality only becomes a self-test when the violation exceeds a certain threshold. This shows that self-testing scenarios fall into two distinct classes depending on whether they exhibit such a threshold or not.

quant-ph↗

Maximal nonlocality from maximal entanglement and mutually unbiased bases, and self-testing of two-qutrit quantum systems

Bell inequalities are an important tool in device-independent quantum information processing because their violation can serve as a certificate of relevant quantum properties. Probably the best known example of a Bell inequality is due to Clauser, Horne, Shimony and Holt (CHSH), which is defined in the simplest scenario involving two dichotomic measurements and whose all key properties are well understood. There have been many attempts to generalise the CHSH Bell inequality to higher-dimensional quantum systems, however, for most of them the maximal quantum violation---the key quantity for most device-independent applications---remains unknown. On the other hand, the constructions for which the maximal quantum violation can be computed, do not preserve the natural property of the CHSH inequality, namely, that the maximal quantum violation is achieved by the maximally entangled state and measurements corresponding to mutually unbiased bases. In this work we propose a novel family of Bell inequalities which exhibit precisely these properties, and whose maximal quantum violation can be computed analytically. In the simplest scenario it recovers the CHSH Bell inequality. These inequalities involve $d$ measurements settings, each having $d$ outcomes for an arbitrary prime number $d\geq 3$. We then show that in the three-outcome case our Bell inequality can be used to self-test the maximally entangled state of two-qutrits and three mutually unbiased bases at each site. Yet, we demonstrate that in the case of more outcomes, their maximal violation does not allow for self-testing in the standard sense, which motivates the definition of a new weak form of self-testing. The ability to certify high-dimensional MUBs makes these inequalities attractive from the device-independent cryptography point of view.

quant-ph↗

Self-testing quantum systems of arbitrary local dimension with minimal number of measurements

Bell nonlocality as a resource for device independent certification schemes has been studied extensively in recent years. The strongest form of device independent certification is referred to as self-testing, which given a device certifies the promised quantum state as well as quantum measurements performed on it without any knowledge of the internal workings of the device. In spite of various results on self-testing protocols, it remains a highly nontrivial problem to propose a certification scheme of qudit-qudit entangled states based on violation of a single $d$-outcome Bell inequality. Here we address this problem and propose a self-testing protocol for the maximally entangled state of any local dimension using the minimum number of measurements possible, i.e., two per subsystem. Our self-testing result can be used to establish unbounded randomness expansion, $\log_2d$ perfect random bits, while it requires only one random bit to encode the measurement choice.

quant-ph↗

Self-testing quantum states and measurements in the prepare-and-measure scenario

The goal of self-testing is to characterize an a priori unknown quantum system based solely on measurement statistics, i.e. using an uncharacterized measurement device. Here we develop self-testing methods for quantum prepare-and-measure experiments, thus not necessarily relying on entanglement and/or violation of a Bell inequality. We present noise-robust techniques for self-testing sets of quantum states and measurements, assuming an upper bound on the Hilbert space dimension. We discuss in detail the case of a $2 \rightarrow 1$ random access code with qubits, for which we provide analytically optimal self-tests. The simplicity and noise robustness of our methods should make them directly applicable to experiments.

quant-ph↗