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arXiv:1001.2257

Static Quantum Games Revisited

Markiewicz, Marcin, Adrian Kosowski, Tomasz I. Tylec, Jarosław Pykacz, Cyril Gavoille

Published Jan 13, 2010• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The so called \emph{quantum game theory} has recently been proclaimed as one of the new branches in the development of both quantum information theory and game theory. However, the notion of a quantum game itself has never been strictly defined, which has led to a lot of conceptual confusion among different authors. In this paper we introduce a new conceptual framework of a \emph{scenario} and an \emph{implementation} of a game. It is shown that the procedures of "quantization" of games proposed in the literature lead in fact to several different games which can be defined within the same scenario, but apart from this they may have nothing in common with the original game. Within the framework we put forward, a lot of conceptual misunderstandings that have arisen around "quantum games" can be stated clearly and resolved uniquely. In particular, the proclaimed essential role of entanglement in several static "quantum games", and their connection with Bell inequalities, is disproved.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1001.2257

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The so called \emph{quantum game theory} has recently been proclaimed as one of the new branches in the development of both quantum information theory and game theory. However, the notion of a quantum game itself has never been strictly defined, which has led to a lot of conceptual confusion among different authors. In this paper we introduce a new conceptual framework of a \emph{scenario} and an \emph{implementation} of a game. It is shown that the procedures of "quantization" of games proposed in the literature lead in fact to several different games which can be defined within the same scenario, but apart from this they may have nothing in common with the original game. Within the framework we put forward, a lot of conceptual misunderstandings that have arisen around "quantum games" can be stated clearly and resolved uniquely. In particular, the proclaimed essential role of entanglement in several static "quantum games", and their connection with Bell inequalities, is disproved.
Theory of quantum games is a new area of investigation that has gone through rapid development during the last few years. Initial motivation for playing games, in the quantum world, comes from the possibility of re-formulating quantum communication protocols, and algorithms, in terms of games between quantum and classical players. The possibility led to the view that quantum games have a potential to provide helpful insight into working of quantum algorithms, and even in finding new ones. This thesis analyzes and compares some interesting games when played classically and quantum mechanically. A large part of the thesis concerns investigations into a refinement notion of the Nash equilibrium concept. The refinement, called an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS), was originally introduced in 1970s by mathematical biologists to model an evolving population using techniques borrowed from game theory. Analysis is developed around a situation when quantization changes ESSs without affecting corresponding Nash equilibria. Effects of quantization on solution-concepts other than Nash equilibrium are presented and discussed. For this purpose the notions of value of coalition, backwards-induction outcome, and subgame-perfect outcome are selected. Repeated games are known to have different information structure than one-shot games. Investigation is presented into a possible way where quantization changes the outcome of a repeated game. Lastly, two new suggestions are put forward to play quantum versions of classical matrix games. The first one uses the association of De Broglie's waves, with travelling material objects, as a resource for playing a quantum game. The second suggestion concerns an EPR type setting exploiting directly the correlations in Bell's inequalities to play a bi-matrix game.
This paper presents a new mathematical formalism that describes the quantization of games. The study of so-called quantum games is quite new, arising from a seminal paper of D. Meyer \cite{Meyer} published in Physics Review Letters in 1999. The ensuing near decade has seen an explosion of contributions and controversy over what exactly a quantized game really is and if there is indeed anything new for game theory. What has clouded many of the issues is the lack of a mathematical formalism for the subject in which these various issues can be clearly and precisely expressed, and which provides a context in which to present their resolution. Such a formalism is presented here, along with proposed resolutions to some of the issues discussed in the literature. One in particular, the question of whether there can exist equilibria in a quantized version of a game that do not correspond to classical correlated equilibria of that game and also deliver better payoffs than the classical correlated equilibria is answered in the affirmative for the Prisoner's Dilemma and Simplified Poker.
Quantum mechanics and game theory were developed at almost the same time, during the first half of 20th century.Classical game theory is one of the most developed in mathematics and computer science.It has many applications in economics, biology, and different kinds of social science.In computer science, many cryptographic protocols are also based on the elements of game theory.Quantum computing is a relatively new branch of computer science.It unites different aspects of complexity theory and quantum physics.Our intention is to take it one step further and combine classical game theory with the acquired knowledge of quantum computing; in particular, to study the effects of using quantum information in the well-known problems of game theory.In this thesis, we obtain several bounds on the values of some special classes of nonlocal quantum games, and we present a new scheme for games quantization.
Quantum game theory offers a lot of interesting questions, and it is relevant to use the quantum information theory to resolve or improve games with lack of information : how to use the power of quantum entanglement to show the superiority of a quantum player that is allowed to use quantum mechanics versus a classical player, how to use quantum communication properties in cooperative games ... But games are also useful to make notions easier to understand, and permit to apprehend easier new ways of reasoning. The objective of this work is to formalize and to study a simple game with qubits using quantum notions of measurement and superposition but keeping a simple formalism so that knowing quantum mechanics is not necessary to play the game. We solve a quantum combinatorial game by giving a winning strategy for it. We also propose a quantisation of a family of combinatorial games.
Research in quantum games has flourished during recent years. However, it seems that opinion remains divided about their true quantum character and content. For example, one argument says that quantum games are nothing but 'disguised' classical games and that to quantize a game is equivalent to replacing the original game by a different classical game. The present thesis contributes towards the ongoing debate about quantum nature of quantum games by developing two approaches addressing the related issues. Both approaches take Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR)-type experiments as the underlying physical set-ups to play two-player quantum games. In the first approach, the players' strategies are unit vectors in their respective planes, with the knowledge of coordinate axes being shared between them. Players perform measurements in an EPR-type setting and their payoffs are defined as functions of the correlations, i.e. without reference to classical or quantum mechanics. Classical bimatrix games are reproduced if the input states are classical and perfectly anti-correlated, as for a classical correlation game. However, for a quantum correlation game, with an entangled singlet state as input, qualitatively different solutions are obtained. The second approach uses the result that when the predictions of a Local Hidden Variable (LHV) model are made to violate the Bell inequalities the result is that some probability measures assume negative values. With the requirement that classical games result when the predictions of a LHV model do not violate the Bell inequalities, our analysis looks at the impact which the emergence of negative probabilities has on the solutions of two-player games which are physically implemented using the EPR-type experiments.
We present a perspective on quantum games that focuses on the physical aspects of the quantities that are used to implement a game. If a game is to be played, it has to be played with objects and actions that have some physical existence. We call such games playable. By focusing on the notion of playability for games we can more clearly see the distinction between classical and quantum games and tackle the thorny issue of what it means to quantize a game. The approach we take can more properly be thought of as gaming the quantum rather than quantizing a game and we find that in this perspective we can think of a complete quantum game, for a given set of preferences, as representing a single family of quantum games with many different playable versions. The versions of Quantum Prisoners Dilemma presented in the literature can therefore be thought of specific instances of the single family of Quantum Prisoner's Dilemma with respect to a particular measurement. The conditions for equilibrium are given for playable quantum games both in terms of expected outcomes and a geometric approach. We discuss how any quantum game can be simulated with a classical game played with classical coins as far as the strategy selections and expected outcomes are concerned.