arXiv subjects

Michał Eckstein

Publications and source records attributed to Michał Eckstein.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Jamming Extensions of Quantum Correlations Lead to Hidden Superluminal Signaling

Relativistic causality in certain spacetime configurations permits jamming - superluminal causal influences that nevertheless do not enable superluminal signaling. We fully characterize the correlations compatible with relativistic causality (RC) by extending the operator framework of PRL 104, 140404. When the underlying state is required to be quantum, we prove that any nontrivial jamming - whether state-independent or state-dependent - necessarily leads to hidden superluminal signaling. Thus, the only consistent possibilities are standard quantum correlations without jamming or the full relativistically causal correlation set, with intermediate jamming extensions of quantum correlations leading to signaling. As an application of our characterization, we investigate the security of device-independent (DI) cryptographic primitives against adversaries constrained only by relativistic causality. We construct explicit RC attacks that break DI bit commitment and DI secret sharing in jamming geometries, even when these protocols remain secure against no-signaling adversaries. Our results show that security against relativistic adversaries requires behaviors to be specified together with the spacetime locations of their measurement events; input-output statistics alone are insufficient.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Qubit-qubit-qutrit quantum correlations in $H \to f \bar f V$

We perform an extensive analysis of the quantum correlations carried by the qubit-qubit-qutrit pure state arising in the decay of a massive scalar into a fermion-antifermion pair and a massive gauge boson, $H \to f \bar f V$, specialising to the Higgs boson decay $h \to τ^- τ^+ Z$. Working with the exact tree-level spin state and its systematic expansion around the massless-fermion limit, we obtain analytic control over the entire phase space: the bipartite entanglement measures, the genuine $2 \otimes 2 \otimes 3$ entanglement structure (the Miyake classification), as well as the Bell-inequality violations and the non-stabiliserness (magic) are all mapped and reproduced by compact formulas. The bipartite measures exhibit a monogamy-like trade-off between the fermion pair and the fermion-boson pairs. The state is genuinely $2 \otimes 2 \otimes 3$ entangled over almost the entire phase space, most strongly in the collinear regions. We derive, for the first time, semi-analytical expressions for the tight $4 \times 4 \times 2$ Bell inequalities of the $2 \otimes 2 \otimes 3$ system, generalising the optimisation previously available only for three qubits, and find that the local-hidden-variable bound is violated over the entire phase space, reaching within a few per cent of the quantum bound at the upper endpoint of the di-tau mass spectrum. We further extend the stabiliser Rényi entropy and the non-local magic to systems with unequal local dimensions, and show that the near-endpoint state carries almost exactly one bit of non-local magic, which peaks at $\log_2 \frac{27}{7} \simeq 1.95$ in the collinear regions. The differential decay rate concentrates precisely in the most nonclassical region of the phase space.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Entanglement generation in a two-body Schrödinger--Newton model

The Schrödinger--Newton (SN) equation provides a semiclassical framework for the evolution of self-gravitating of massive quantum systems. We propose a two-body Schrödinger--Newton model that separates local nonlinear self-localization from the nonseparable Newtonian pair potential. Analytically, we show that the nonlinear self-field preserves the Schmidt spectrum, whereas direct entanglement generation arises from the nonseparable pair potential. Using numerical simulations in a regularized one-dimensional geometry, we find that entanglement generation depends sensitively on the initial spatial configuration and on the mass ratio. Highly localized, self-bound wavepackets experience minimal entanglement growth during scattering. Spatial delocalization and kinetic dispersion broaden the interaction region, amplifying the entangling power of the pair potential and exciting higher-order spatial modes. For dispersive Gaussian initial states, mass asymmetry shatters the lighter particle, producing Wigner negativity and rapid entanglement growth, whereas stationary SN profiles strongly suppress this effect. Stationary SN profiles isolate the bare pair-potential contribution; dispersive Gaussian initial states inflate it.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

The operational no-signalling constraints and their implications

The study of quantum correlations within relativistic spacetimes, and the consequences of relativistic causality on information processing using such correlations, has gained much attention in recent years. In this paper, we establish a unified framework in the form of operational no-signalling constraints to study both nonlocal and temporal correlations within general relativistic spacetimes. We explore several intriguing consequences arising from our framework. Firstly, we show that the violation of the operational no-signalling constraints in Minkowski spacetime implies either a logical paradox or an operational infringement of Poincaré symmetry. We thereby examine and subvert recent claims in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 110401 (2022)] on the possibility of witnessing operationally detectable causal loops in Minkowski spacetime. Secondly, we explore the possibility of jamming of nonlocal correlations, controverting a recent claim in [Nat. Comm. 16, 269 (2025)] that a physical mechanism for jamming would necessarily lead to superluminal signalling. Finally, we show that in black hole spacetimes certain nonlocal correlations under and across the event horizon can be jammed by any agent without spoiling the operational no-signalling constraints.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Quantifying superluminal signalling in Schrödinger-Newton model

The Schrödinger-Newton equation aims at describing the dynamics of massive quantum systems subject to the gravitational self-interaction. As a deterministic nonlinear quantum wave equation, it is generally believed to conflict with the relativistic no-signalling principle. Here we challenge this viewpoint and show that it is of key importance to study the quantitative and operational character of the superluminal effects. To this end we employ a rigorous formalism of probability measures on spacetime and quantify the probability of a successful superluminal bit transfer via the single-particle Schrödinger-Newton equation. We demonstrate that such a quantity decreases with the increasing size and mass of the system. Furthermore, we prove that the Einstein-Dirac system, which yields the Schrödinger-Newton equation in the non-relativistic limit, is perfectly compatible with the relativistic causal structure. Our study demonstrates that the Schrödinger-Newton equation, which is by construction non-relativistic, is in fact `more compatible' with the no-signalling principle than the ordinary free Schrödinger equation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

The max-type quasimetrics on probability simplices

Quasimetric spaces form a natural framework to study distance problems with an inherent directional asymmetry. We introduce a simple novel class of quasimetrics on probability simplices, inspired by the Chebyshev distance. It is shown that such quasimetrics have expedient geometric properties -- they induce the Euclidean topology and a Finslerian infinitesimal structure, with which the probability simplices become geodesic spaces. Moreover, we prove that the broad family of the proposed quasimetrics are monotone under bistochastic maps.

math.MG↗

arXiv2025

Quantum Information meets High-Energy Physics: Input to the update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics

Some of the most astonishing and prominent properties of Quantum Mechanics, such as entanglement and Bell nonlocality, have only been studied extensively in dedicated low-energy laboratory setups. The feasibility of these studies in the high-energy regime explored by particle colliders was only recently shown and has gathered the attention of the scientific community. For the range of particles and fundamental interactions involved, particle colliders provide a novel environment where quantum information theory can be probed, with energies exceeding by about 12 orders of magnitude those employed in dedicated laboratory setups. Furthermore, collider detectors have inherent advantages in performing certain quantum information measurements, and allow for the reconstruction of the state of the system under consideration via quantum state tomography. Here, we elaborate on the potential, challenges, and goals of this innovative and rapidly evolving line of research and discuss its expected impact on both quantum information theory and high-energy physics.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Prospects for quantum process tomography at high energies

In quantum information theory, the evolution of an open quantum system -- a unitary evolution followed by a measurement -- is described by a quantum channel or, more generally, a quantum instrument. In this work, we formulate spin and flavour measurements in collider experiments as quantum instruments. We demonstrate that the Choi matrix, which completely determines input-output transitions, can be both theoretically computed from a given model and experimentally reconstructed from a set of final state measurements (quantum state tomography) using varied input states. The experimental reconstruction of the Choi matrix, known as quantum process tomography, offers a powerful new approach for probing potential extensions of the Standard Model within the quantum field theory framework and, at the same time, constitutes a new foundational test of quantum mechanics itself. As an example, we outline the quantum process tomography approach applied to the $e^+ e^- \to t \bar{t}$ process at a polarized lepton collider.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Superluminal signalling and chaos in nonlinear quantum dynamics

Nonlinear quantum dynamics is often invoked in models trying to bridge the gap between the quantum micro-world and the classical macro-world. Such endeavors, however, encounter challenges at the nexus with relativity. In 1989 Nicolas Gisin proved a powerful no-go theorem, according to which nonlinear quantum dynamics would lead to superluminal signalling, violating Einstein's causality. Here we analyse the theorem from the perspective of recent developments. First, we observe that it harmonises with the no-restriction hypothesis from General Probabilistic Theories. Second, we note that it requires a suitable synchronisation of Alice's and Bob's clocks and actions. Next, we argue that it does not automatically exclude the possibility of global nonlinear quantum dynamics on a tensor product Hilbert space. Consequently, we investigate a class of such dynamics inspired by discrete analogues of nonlinear Schrödinger equations. We show that, in general, they exhibit a chaotic character. In this context we inspect whether superluminal signalling can be avoided by relaxing the no-restriction hypothesis. We study three possible communication protocols involving either local measurements or modifications of a local Hamiltonian. We conclude that, in general, in all three cases, two spacelike separated parties can effectuate statistical superluminal information transfer. Nevertheless, we show an example of a nonlocal nonlinear quantum dynamics, which does not allow for it, provided that we relax the no-restriction hypothesis.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

A new class of distances on complex projective spaces

The complex projective space $\mathbb{P}(\mathbb{C}^n)$ can be interpreted as the space of all quantum pure states of size $n$. A distance on this space, interesting from the perspective of quantum physics, can be induced from a classical distance defined on the $n$-point probability simplex by the `earth mover problem'. We show that this construction leads to a quantity satisfying the triangle inequality, which yields a true distance on complex projective space belonging to the family of quantum $2$-Wasserstein distances.

math-ph↗

arXiv2023

Two instances of random access code in the quantum regime

We consider two classes of quantum generalisations of Random Access Code (RAC) and study lower bounds for probabilities of success for such tasks. It provides a useful framework for the study of certain information processing tasks with constrained resources. The first class is based on a random access code with quantum inputs and output known as No-Signalling Quantum RAC (NS-QRAC) [A. Grudka et al. Phys. Rev. A 92, 052312 (2015)], where unbounded entanglement and constrained classical communication are allowed, which can be seen as quantum teleportation with constrained classical communication, for which we provide a quantum lower bound. We consider two modifications to the NS-QRAC scenario, first where unbounded entanglement and constrained quantum communication is allowed and, second where bounded entanglement and unconstrained classical communication are allowed, where we find a monogamy relation for the transmission fidelities, which -- in contrast to the usual communication schemes -- involves multiple senders and a single receiver. We provide lower bounds for these scenarios. The second class is based on a random access code with a quantum channel and shared entanglement [A. Tavakoli et al. PRX Quantum 2 (4) 040357 (2021)]. We study the set of tasks where two inputs made of two digits of $d$-base are encoded over a qudit and a maximally entangled state, which can be seen as quantum dense coding with constrained quantum communication, for which we provide quantum lower bounds for $d=2,3,4$. The encoding employed utilises Gray codes.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Monotonicity of the quantum 2-Wasserstein distance

We study a quantum analogue of the 2-Wasserstein distance as a measure of proximity on the set $Ω_N$ of density matrices of dimension $N$. We show that such (semi-)distances do not induce Riemannian metrics on the tangent bundle of $Ω_N$ and are typically not unitary invariant. Nevertheless, we prove that for $N=2$ dimensional Hilbert space the quantum 2-Wasserstein distance (unique up to rescaling) is monotonous with respect to any single-qubit quantum operation and the solution of the quantum transport problem is essentially unique. Furthermore, for any $N \geq 3$ and the quantum cost matrix proportional to a projector we demonstrate the monotonicity under arbitrary mixed unitary channels. Finally, we provide numerical evidence which allows us to conjecture that the unitary invariant quantum 2-Wasserstein semi-distance is monotonous with respect to all CPTP maps in any dimension $N$.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Quantum Optimal Transport

We analyze a quantum version of the Monge--Kantorovich optimal transport problem. The quantum transport cost related to a Hermitian cost matrix $C$ is minimized over the set of all bipartite coupling states $ρ^{AB}$ with fixed reduced density matrices $ρ^A$ and $ρ^B$ of size $m$ and $n$. The minimum quantum optimal transport cost $\rT^Q_{C}(ρ^A,ρ^B)$ can be efficiently computed using semidefinite programming. In the case $m=n$ the cost $\rT^Q_{C}$ gives a semidistance if and only if $C$ is positive semidefinite and vanishes exactly on the subspace of symmetric matrices. Furthermore, if $C$ satisfies the above conditions, then $\sqrt{\rT^Q_{C}}$ induces a quantum analogue of the Wasserstein-2 distance. Taking the quantum cost matrix $C^Q$ to be the projector on the antisymmetric subspace, we provide a semi-analytic expression for $\rT^Q_{C^Q}$ for any pair of single-qubit states and show that its square root yields a transport distance on the Bloch ball. Numerical simulations suggest that this property holds also in higher dimensions. Assuming that the cost matrix suffers decoherence and that the density matrices become diagonal, we study the quantum-to-classical transition of the Earth mover's distance, propose a continuous family of interpolating distances, and demonstrate that the quantum transport is cheaper than the classical one. Furthermore, we introduce a related quantity -- the SWAP-fidelity -- and compare its properties with the standard Uhlmann--Jozsa fidelity. We also discuss the quantum optimal transport for general $d$-partite systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Probing the limits of quantum theory with quantum information at subnuclear scales

Modern quantum engineering techniques enabled successful foundational tests of quantum mechanics. Yet, the universal validity of quantum postulates is an open question. Here we propose a new theoretical framework of Q-data tests, which recognises the established validity of quantum theory, but allows for more general -- 'post-quantum' -- scenarios in certain physical regimes. It can accommodate a large class of models with modified quantum wave dynamics, correlations beyond entanglement or general probabilistic postulates. We discuss its experimental implementation suited to probe the nature of strong nuclear interactions. In contrast to the present accelerator experiments, it shifts the focus from high-luminosity beam physics to individual particle coherent control.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Causality and time order -- relativistic and probabilistic aspects

We investigate temporal and causal threads in the fabric of contemporary physical theories with an emphasis on empirical and operationalistic aspects. Building on the axiomatization of general relativity proposed by J. Ehlers, F. Pirani and A. Schild and the global space-time structure elaborated by R. Penrose, S.W. Hawking, B. Carter and others, we argue that the current way of doing relativistic physics presupposes treating time and causality as primitive concepts, neither of them being `more primitive' than the other. The decision regarding which concepts to assume as primitive and which statements to regard as axioms depends on the choice of the angle at which we contemplate the whole. This standard approach is based on the presupposition that the concept of a point-like particle is a viable approximation. However, this assumption is not supported by a realistic approach to doing physics and, in particular, by quantum theory. We remove this assumption by analysing the recent works by M. Eckstein and T. Miller. They consider the space $P(M)$ of probability measures on space-time $M$ such that, for an element $μ\in P(M)$, the number $μ(K)$ specifies the probability of the occurrence of some event associated with the space-time region $K$ and the measure $μ$. In this way, $M$ is not to be regarded as a collection of space-time events, but rather as a support for corresponding probability measures. As shown by Eckstein and Miller, the space $P(M)$ inherits the causal order from the underlying space-time and facilitates a rigorous notion of a `causal evolution of probability measures'. We look at the deductive chains creating temporal and causal structures analysed in these works, in order to highlight their operational (or quasi-operational) aspect. This is impossible without taking into account the relative frequencies and correlations observed in relevant experiments.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2022

Quantum information in Hawking radiation

In 1974 Steven Hawking showed that black holes emit thermal radiation, which eventually causes them to evaporate. The problem of the fate of information in this process is known as the "black hole information paradox". Two main types of resolution postulate either a fundamental loss of information in Nature -- hence the breakdown of quantum mechanics -- or some sort of new physics, e.g. quantum gravity, which guarantee the global preservation of unitarity. Here we explore the second possibility with the help of recent developments in continuous-variable quantum information. Concretely, we employ the solution to the Gaussian quantum marginal problem to show that the thermality of all individual Hawking modes is consistent with a global pure state of the radiation. Surprisingly, we find out that the mods of radiation of an astrophysical black hole are thermal until the very last burst. In contrast, the single-mode thermality of Hawking radiation originating from microscopic black holes, expected to evaporate through several quanta, is not excluded, though there are constraints on modes' frequencies. Our result paves the way towards a systematic study of multi-mode correlations in Hawking radiation.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2021

Quantum Monge-Kantorovich problem and transport distance between density matrices

A quantum version of the Monge--Kantorovich optimal transport problem is analyzed. The transport cost is minimized over the set of all bipartite coupling states $ρ^{AB}$, such that both of its reduced density matrices $ρ^A$ and $ρ^B$ of dimension $N$ are fixed. We show that, selecting the quantum cost matrix to be proportional to the projector on the antisymmetric subspace, the minimal transport cost leads to a semidistance between $ρ^A$ and $ρ^B$, which is bounded from below by the rescaled Bures distance and from above by the root infidelity. In the single qubit case we provide a semi-analytic expression for the optimal transport cost between any two states and prove that its square root satisfies the triangle inequality and yields an analogue of the Wasserstein distance of order two on the set of density matrices. We introduce an associated measure of proximity of quantum states, called SWAP-fidelity, and discuss its properties and applications in quantum machine learning.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Quantum black holes as solvents

Almost all of the entropy in the universe is in the form of Bekenstein--Hawking (BH) entropy of super-massive black holes. This entropy, if it satisfies Boltzmann's equation $S=\log{\cal N}$, hence represents almost all the accessible phase space of the Universe, somehow associated to objects which themselves fill out a very small fraction of ordinary three-dimensional space. Although time scales are very long, it is believed that black holes will eventually evaporate by emitting Hawking radiation, which is thermal when counted mode by mode. A pure quantum state collapsing to a black hole will hence eventually re-emerge as a state with strictly positive entropy, which constitutes the famous black hole information paradox. Expanding on a remark by Hawking we posit that BH entropy is a thermodynamic entropy, which must be distinguished from information-theoretic entropy. The paradox can then be explained by information return in Hawking radiation. The novel perspective advanced here is that if BH entropy counts the number of accessible physical states in a quantum black hole, then the paradox can be seen as an instance of the fundamental problem of statistical mechanics. We suggest a specific analogy to the increase of the entropy in a solvation process. We further show that the huge phase volume (${\cal N}$), which must be made available to the universe in a gravitational collapse, cannot originate from the entanglement between ordinary matter and/or radiation inside and outside the black hole. We argue that, instead, the quantum degrees of freedom of the gravitational field must get activated near the singularity, resulting in a final state of the `entangled entanglement' form involving both matter and gravity.

gr-qc↗