arXiv subjects

Valerio Scarani

Publications and source records attributed to Valerio Scarani.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2025

Petz recovery maps of single-qubit decoherence channels in an ion trap quantum processor

The Petz recovery map provides a near-optimal reversal of quantum noise, yet proposals for its implementation are only recent. We propose a physical realization of the exact state-specific Petz map in an ion trap for qubit decoherence channels. Our circuit constructions require at most $1 (2)$ ancilla qubits and $3 (20)$ CNOT gates for channels with Kraus rank $2 (>2)$. We analyze typical ion trap errors and construct corresponding Petz maps, simulating their performance under realistic noise modeled by residual spin-motion coupling. Quantum circuits are provided for depolarizing, dephasing, and amplitude damping channels. Focusing on single-shot recovery, suited for present-day devices, we also quantify the precision of prior knowledge required to achieve a recovery error below 0.01 across varying decoherence levels and state purities.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Emergence of Fluctuation Relations in UNO

In the last two decades, fluctuation theorems have been proved formally and demonstrated experimentally for several variables (such as entropy production, work, or flux) and different noises causing the fluctuations (of either thermal or other origin; Markovian or non-Markovian). Here we report the observation of a detailed fluctuation relation in a statistical process outside thermodynamics and physics: the card game UNO. As the fluctuating variable, we consider the number of steps $W$ needed for one player's deck to change from $x$ to $y$ number of cards. The other players and the remaining cards play the role of a finite non-Markovian bath. Numerical simulations of runs of the game show that $W$ obeys a fluctuation relation analogous to Crooks' theorem. While the observed behavior shares some common features with infinite random walks, it also exhibits deviations that are clear signatures of non-Markovianity and the finiteness of the bath: Notably, the parameter corresponding to temperature depends strongly on the transition $x\rightarrow y$. Our paper contributes to extending the scope of fluctuation theorems beyond their usual thermodynamic setting.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2025

Thermalization of finite complexity and its application to heat bath algorithmic cooling

We introduce a class of thermal operations based on the collision model, where the system sequentially interacts with uncorrelated bath molecules via energy-preserving unitaries. To ensure finite complexity, each molecule is constrained to be no larger than the system. We identify a necessary condition for cooling below the bath temperature via a single collision: the system must initially lack a well-defined effective temperature, even a negative one. By constructing a iterative protocol, we demonstrate that sub-bath cooling is achievable without a machine under these restricted thermal operations. Moreover, introducing a qubit machine further enhances both the cooling limit and energy efficiency. These findings contribute to the broader study of cooling with finite resources.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Informational non-equilibrium concentration

Informational contributions to thermodynamics can be studied in isolation by considering systems with fully-degenerate Hamiltonians. In this regime, being in non-equilibrium -- termed informational non-equilibrium -- provides thermodynamic resources, such as extractable work, solely from the information content. The usefulness of informational non-equilibrium creates an incentive to obtain more of it, motivating the question of how to concentrate it: can we increase the local informational non-equilibrium of a product state $ρ\otimesρ$ under a global closed system (unitary) evolution? We fully solve this problem analytically, showing that it is impossible for two-qubits, and it is always possible to find states achieving this in higher dimensions. Specifically for two-qutrits, we find that there is a single unitary achieving optimal concentration for every state, for which we uncover a Mepmba-like effect. We further discuss the notion of bound resources in this framework, initial global correlations' ability to activate concentration, and applications to concentrating purity and intrinsic randomness.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Tsirelson's Inequality for the Precession Protocol is Maximally Violated by Quantum Theory

The precession protocol involves measuring $P_3$, the probability that a uniformly precessing observable (like the position of a harmonic oscillator or a coordinate undergoing spatial rotation) is positive at one of three equally spaced times. Tsirelson's inequality, which states that $P_3 \leq 2/3$ in classical theory, is violated in quantum theory by certain states. In this Letter, we address some open questions about the inequality: What is the maximum violation of Tsirelson's inequality possible in quantum theory? Might other theories do better? By considering the precession protocol in a theory-independent manner for systems with finitely many outcomes, we derive a general bound for the maximum possible violation. This theory-independent bound must be satisfied by any theory whose expectation values are linear functions of observables -- which includes classical, quantum, and all general probabilistic theories -- and depends only on the minimum positive and negative measurement outcomes. Given any such two values, we prove by construction that quantum theory always saturates this bound. Some notable examples include the angular momentum of a spin-$3/2$ particle and a family of observables that outperform the quantum harmonic oscillator in the precession protocol. Finally, we also relate our findings to the recently introduced notion of constrained conditional probabilities.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Extension of the Alberti-Uhlmann criterion beyond qubit dichotomies

The Alberti-Uhlmann criterion states that any given qubit dichotomy can be transformed into any other given qubit dichotomy by a quantum channel if and only if the testing region of the former dichotomy includes the testing region of the latter dichotomy. Here, we generalize the Alberti-Uhlmann criterion to the case of arbitrary number of qubit or qutrit states. We also derive an analogous result for the case of qubit or qutrit measurements with arbitrary number of elements. We demonstrate the possibility of applying our criterion in a semi-device independent way.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

A Retrodictive Approach to Quantum State Smoothing

Smoothing is a technique for estimating the state of an imperfectly monitored open system by combining both prior and posterior measurement information. In the quantum regime, current approaches to smoothing either give unphysical outcomes, due to the non-commutativity of the measurements at different times, or require assumptions about how the environment is measuring the system, which with current technology is unverifiable. We propose a novel definition of the smoothed quantum state based on quantum Bayesian retrodiction, which mirrors the classical retrodictive approach to smoothing. This approach always yields physical results and does not require any assumption on the environment. We show that this smoothed state has, on average, greater purity than the state reconstructed using just the prior information. Finally, we make a connection with the smoothing theory of Guevara and Wiseman in a well-studied regime, and describe from a purely quantum perspective how it conditions on the posterior information.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Even-parity precession protocol for detecting nonclassicality and entanglement

We introduce an even-parity precession protocol that can detect the nonclassicality of some quantum states using only measurements of a uniformly-precessing variable at different points in time. Depending on the system under study, the protocol may detect the Wigner negativity of a single quantum harmonic oscillator or of a single spin $j\geq 2$; the non-Gaussian entanglement of two harmonic oscillators; or genuine multipartite entanglement of a spin ensemble, whose total spin is an integer. Unlike in other nonclassicality tests, simultaneous or sequential measurements are not required. Our protocol can also detect states that commute with the parity operator, which were missed by similar protocols built from Tsirelson's original precession protocol. This work also closes a long-standing gap by showing the possibility of detecting the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger entanglement of an even number of qubits using only collective spin measurements.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Observational entropy with general quantum priors

Observational entropy captures both the intrinsic uncertainty of a thermodynamic state and the lack of knowledge due to coarse-graining. We demonstrate two interpretations of observational entropy, one as the statistical deficiency resulting from a measurement, the other as the difficulty of inferring the input state from the measurement statistics by quantum Bayesian retrodiction. These interpretations show that the observational entropy implicitly includes a uniform reference prior. Since the uniform prior cannot be used when the system is infinite-dimensional or otherwise energy-constrained, we propose generalizations by replacing the uniform prior with arbitrary quantum states that may not even commute with the state of the system. We propose three candidates for this generalization, discuss their properties, and show that one of them gives a unified expression that relates both interpretations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Certifying the quantumness of a nuclear spin qudit through its uniform precession

Spin precession is a textbook example of dynamics of a quantum system that exactly mimics its classical counterpart. Here we challenge this view by certifying the quantumness of exotic states of a nuclear spin through its uniform precession. The key to this result is measuring the positivity, instead of the expectation value, of the $x$-projection of the precessing spin, and using a spin > 1/2 qudit, that is not restricted to semi-classical spin coherent states. The experiment is performed on a single spin-7/2 $^{123}$Sb nucleus, implanted in a silicon nanoelectronic device, amenable to high-fidelity preparation, control, and projective single-shot readout. Using Schrödinger cat states and other bespoke states of the nucleus, we violate the classical bound by 19 standard deviations, proving that no classical probability distribution can explain the statistic of this spin precession, and highlighting our ability to prepare quantum resource states with high fidelity in a single atomic-scale qudit.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Dynamics-Based Entanglement Witnesses for Non-Gaussian States of Harmonic Oscillators

We introduce a family of entanglement witnesses for continuous variable systems, which rely on the sole assumption that their dynamics is that of coupled harmonic oscillators at the time of the test. Entanglement is inferred from the Tsirelson nonclassicality test on one of the normal modes, without any knowledge about the state of the other mode. In each round, the protocol requires measuring only the sign of one coordinate (e.g., position) at one among several times. This dynamic-based entanglement witness is more akin to a Bell inequality than to an uncertainty relation: in particular, it does not admit false positives from classical theory. Our criterion detects non-Gaussian states, some of which are missed by other criteria.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Maximal intrinsic randomness of a quantum state

One of the most counterintuitive aspects of quantum theory is its claim that there is 'intrinsic' randomness in the physical world. Quantum information science has greatly progressed in the study of intrinsic, or secret, quantum randomness in the past decade. With much emphasis on device-independent and semi-device-independent bounds, one of the most basic questions has escaped attention: how much intrinsic randomness can be extracted from a given state $ρ$, and what measurements achieve this bound? We answer this question for three different randomness quantifiers: the conditional min-entropy, the conditional von Neumann entropy and the conditional max-entropy. For the first, we solve the min-max problem of finding the projective measurement that minimises the maximal guessing probability of an eavesdropper. The result is that one can guarantee an amount of conditional min-entropy $H^*_{\textrm{min}}=-\log_2 P_{\textrm{guess}}^{*}(ρ)$ with $P_{\textrm{guess}}^{*}(ρ)=\frac{1}{d}(\textrm{tr} \sqrtρ)^2$ by performing suitable projective measurements. For the conditional von Neumann entropy, we find that the maximal value is $H^{*}= \log_{2}d-S(ρ)$, with $S(ρ)$ the von Neumann entropy of $ρ$, while for the conditional max-entropy, we find the maximal value $H^{*}_\textrm{max}=\log_{2}d + \log_{2}λ_{\textrm{max}}(ρ)$, where $λ_{\textrm{max}}(ρ)$ is the largest eigenvalue of $ρ$. Optimal values for $H^{*}_{\textrm{min}}$, $H^{*}$ and $H^{*}_\textrm{max}$ are achieved by measuring in any basis that is unbiased to the eigenbasis of $ρ$, as well as by other, less intuitive, measurements.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Beating one bit of communication with quantum correlations in smaller dimensions

As a consequence of Bell's theorem, the statistics of measurements on some entangled states cannot be simulated with local hidden variables alone. The amount of communication that must be supplied is an intuitive quantifier of nonclassicality. While it is obvious that this amount can be very large in general, it has been surprisingly difficult to find simple examples of quantum correlations, whose simulation requires more than one bit of communication. In this paper, we report the simplest example to date, which lives in the $(5,2,5,5)$ Bell scenario [the previously known smallest case living in the $(7,3,16,16)$ scenario]. The proof is built on the observation that finding the largest 1-bit score is equivalent to finding the bipartition of the inputs, in which the sum of the local scores of the two subgames is maximal.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

A Witness of GHZ Entanglement Using Only Collective Spin Measurements

Of existing entanglement witnesses that utilize only collective measurements of a spin ensemble, not all can detect genuine multipartite entanglement (GME), and none can detect Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states beyond the tripartite case. We fill this gap by introducing an entanglement witness that detects GME of spin ensembles, whose total spin is half-integer, using only collective spin measurements. Our witness is based on a nonclassicality test introduced by Tsirelson, and solely requires the measurement of total angular momentum along different directions. States detected by our witness are close to a family of GHZ-like states, which includes GHZ states of an odd number of spin-half particles. We also study the robustness of our witness under depolarizing noise, and derive exact noise bounds for detecting noisy GHZ states.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Certification of genuine multipartite entanglement in spin ensembles with measurements of total angular momentum

We introduce entanglement witnesses for spin ensembles which detect genuine multipartite entanglement using only measurements of the total angular momentum. States that are missed by most other angular-momentum-based witnesses for spin ensembles, which include Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states and certain superpositions of Dicke states, can be effectively detected by our witness. The protocol involves estimating the probability that the total angular momentum is positive along equally-spaced directions on a plane. Alternatively, one could measure along a single direction at different times, under the assumption that the total spins undergoes a uniform precession. Genuine multipartite entanglement is detected when the observed score exceeds a separable bound. Exact analytical expressions for the separable bound are obtained for spin ensembles $j_1\otimes j_2\otimes\dots \otimes j_N$ such that the total spin is a half-integer, and numerical results are reported for the other cases. Finally, we conjecture an expression for the separable bound when the total spin is not known, which is well supported by the numerical results.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Role of Dilations in Reversing Physical Processes: Tabletop Reversibility and Generalized Thermal Operations

Irreversibility, crucial in both thermodynamics and information theory, is naturally studied by comparing the evolution -- the (forward) channel -- with an associated reverse -- the reverse channel. There are two natural ways to define this reverse channel. Using logical inference, the reverse channel is the Bayesian retrodiction (the Petz recovery map in the quantum formalism) of the original one. Alternatively, we know from physics that every irreversible process can be modeled as an open system: one can then define the corresponding closed system by adding a bath ("dilation"), trivially reverse the global reversible process, and finally remove the bath again. We prove that the two recipes are strictly identical, both in the classical and in the quantum formalism, once one accounts for correlations formed between system and the bath. Having established this, we define and study special classes of maps: product-preserving maps (including generalized thermal maps), for which no such system-bath correlations are formed for some states; and tabletop time-reversible maps, when the reverse channel can be implemented with the same devices as the original one. We establish several general results connecting these classes, and a very detailed characterization when both the system and the bath are one qubit. In particular, we show that when reverse channels are well-defined, product-preservation is a sufficient but not necessary condition for tabletop reversibility; and that the preservation of local energy spectra is a necessary and sufficient condition to generalized thermal operations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Maxwell's Demon walks into Wall Street: Stochastic Thermodynamics meets Expected Utility Theory

The interplay between thermodynamics and information theory has a long history, but its quantitative manifestations are still being explored. We import tools from expected utility theory from economics into stochastic thermodynamics. We prove that, in a process obeying Crooks' fluctuation relations, every $α$ Rényi divergence between the forward process and its reverse has the operational meaning of the ``certainty equivalent'' of dissipated work (or, more generally, of entropy production) for a player with risk aversion $r=α-1$. The two known cases $α=1$ and $α=\infty$ are recovered and receive the new interpretation of being associated to a risk-neutral and an extreme risk-averse player respectively. Among the new results, the condition for $α=0$ describes the behavior of a risk-seeking player willing to bet on the transient violations of the second law. Our approach further leads to a generalized Jarzynski equality, and generalizes to a broader class of statistical divergences.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2023

Neural Network Approach to the Simulation of Entangled States with One Bit of Communication

Bell's theorem states that Local Hidden Variables (LHVs) cannot fully explain the statistics of measurements on some entangled quantum states. It is natural to ask how much supplementary classical communication would be needed to simulate them. We study two long-standing open questions in this field with neural network simulations and other tools. First, we present evidence that all projective measurements on partially entangled pure two-qubit states require only one bit of communication. We quantify the statistical distance between the exact quantum behaviour and the product of the trained network, or of a semianalytical model inspired by it. Second, while it is known on general grounds (and obvious) that one bit of communication cannot eventually reproduce all bipartite quantum correlation, explicit examples have proved evasive. Our search failed to find one for several bipartite Bell scenarios with up to 5 inputs and 4 outputs, highlighting the power of one bit of communication in reproducing quantum correlations.

quant-ph↗