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arXiv:0707.2868 · Physical Review E

Constructing quantum games from nonfactorizable joint probabilities

Azhar Iqbal, Taksu Cheon

Published Dec 20, 2007• 35 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A probabilistic framework is developed that gives a unifying perspective on both the classical and quantum versions of two-player games. We suggest exploiting peculiar joint probabilities involved in Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) experiments to construct a quantum game when the corresponding classical game is obtained from factorizable joint probabilities. We analyze how nonfactorizability changes Nash equilibria in three well-known games of prisoner's dilemma, stag hunt, and chicken. In this framework we find that for the game of prisoner's dilemma even nonfactorizable EPR joint probabilities cannot be helpful to escape from the classical outcome of the game. For a particular version of the chicken game, however, we find that the two nonfactorizable sets of joint probabilities, which maximally violate the Clauser-Holt-Shimony-Horne sum of correlations, indeed result in new Nash equilibria.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.76.061122

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A probabilistic framework is developed that gives a unifying perspective on both the classical and quantum versions of two-player games. We suggest exploiting peculiar joint probabilities involved in Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) experiments to construct a quantum game when the corresponding classical game is obtained from factorizable joint probabilities. We analyze how nonfactorizability changes Nash equilibria in three well-known games of prisoner's dilemma, stag hunt, and chicken. In this framework we find that for the game of prisoner's dilemma even nonfactorizable EPR joint probabilities cannot be helpful to escape from the classical outcome of the game. For a particular version of the chicken game, however, we find that the two nonfactorizable sets of joint probabilities, which maximally violate the Clauser-Holt-Shimony-Horne sum of correlations, indeed result in new Nash equilibria.
We use the standard three-party Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) setting in order to play general three-player non-cooperative symmetric games. We analyze how the peculiar non-factorizable joint probabilities that may emerge in the EPR setting can change outcome of the game. Our setup requires that the quantum game attains classical interpretation for factor- izable joint probabilities. We analyze the generalized three-player game of Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) and show that the players can indeed escape from the classical outcome of the game because of non-factorizable joint probabilities. This result for three-player PD contrasts strikingly with our earlier result for two-player PD for which even non-factorizable joint prob- abilities are not found to be helpful to escape from the classical outcome of the game.
The N-player quantum games are analyzed that use an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) experiment, as the underlying physical setup. In this setup, a player's strategies are not unitary transformations as in alternate quantum game-theoretic frameworks, but a classical choice between two directions along which spin or polarization measurements are made. The players' strategies thus remain identical to their strategies in the mixed-strategy version of the classical game. In the EPR setting the quantum game reduces itself to the corresponding classical game when the shared quantum state reaches zero entanglement. We find the relations for the probability distribution for N-qubit GHZ and W-type states, subject to general measurement directions, from which the expressions for the players' payoffs and mixed Nash equilibrium are determined. Players' N x N payoff matrices are then defined using linear functions so that common two-player games can be easily extended to the N-player case and permit analytic expressions for the Nash equilibrium. As a specific example, we solve the Prisoners' Dilemma game for general N ≥ 2. We find a new property for the game that for an even number of players the payoffs at the Nash equilibrium are equal, whereas for an odd number of players the cooperating players receive higher payoffs. By dispensing with the standard unitary transformations on state vectors in Hilbert space and using instead rotors and multivectors, based on Clifford's geometric algebra (GA), it is shown how the N-player case becomes tractable. The new mathematical approach presented here has wide implications in the areas of quantum information and quantum complexity, as it opens up a powerful way to tractably analyze N-partite qubit interactions.
We present a novel formulation of quantum game theory based on the Schmidt decomposition, which has the merit that the entanglement of quantum strategies is manifestly quantified. We apply this formulation to 2-player, 2-strategy symmetric games and obtain a complete set of quantum Nash equilibria. Apart from those available with the maximal entanglement, these quantum Nash equilibria are extensions of the Nash equilibria in classical game theory. The phase structure of the equilibria is determined for all values of entanglement, and thereby the possibility of resolving the dilemmas by entanglement in the game of Chicken, the Battle of the Sexes, the Prisoners' Dilemma, and the Stag Hunt, is examined. We find that entanglement transforms these dilemmas with each other but cannot resolve them, except in the Stag Hunt game where the dilemma can be alleviated to a certain degree.
A quantum version of the Matching Pennies (MP) game is proposed that is played using an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm (EPR-Bohm) setting. We construct the quantum game without using the state vectors, while considering only the quantum mechanical joint probabilities relevant to the EPR-Bohm setting. We embed the classical game within the quantum game such that the classical MP game results when the quantum mechanical joint probabilities become factorizable. We report new Nash equilibria in the quantum MP game that emerge when the quantum mechanical joint probabilities maximally violate the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt form of Bell's inequality.
A joint probability formalism for quantum games with noise is proposed, inspired by the formalism of non-factorizable probabilities that connects the joint probabilities to quantum games with noise. Using this connection, we show that the joint probabilities are non-factorizable; thus, noise does not generically destroy entanglement. This formalism was applied to the Prisoner's Dilemma, the Chicken Game, and the Battle of the Sexes, where noise is coupled through a single parameter μ. We find that for all the games except for the Battle of the Sexes, the Nash inequalities are maintained up to a threshold value of the noise. Beyond the threshold value, the inequalities no longer hold for quantum and classical strategies. For the Battle of the sexes, the Nash inequalities always hold, no matter the noise strength. This is due to the symmetry and anti-symmetry of the parameters that determine the joint probabilities for that game. Finally, we propose a new correlation measure for the games with classical and quantum strategies, where we obtain that the incorporation of noise, when we have quantum strategies, does not affect entanglement, but classical strategies result in behavior that approximates quantum games with quantum strategies without the need to saturate the system with the maximum value of noise. In this manner, these correlations can be understood as entanglement for our game approach.
The framework for playing quantum games in an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) type setting is investigated using the mathematical formalism of geometric algebra (GA). The main advantage of this framework is that the players' strategy sets remain identical to the ones in the classical mixed-strategy version of the game, and hence the quantum game becomes a proper extension of the classical game, avoiding a criticism of other quantum game frameworks. We produce a general solution for two-player games, and as examples, we analyze the games of Prisoners' Dilemma and Stag Hunt in the EPR setting. The use of GA allows a quantum-mechanical analysis without the use of complex numbers or the Dirac Bra-ket notation, and hence is more accessible to the non-physicist.