We discuss possibility of upper-bounding dimension of quantum states device-independently. Provided that the states are pure, it is possible to generate certain four states whose dimension is bounded by two.
The semi-device-independent approach provides a framework for prepare-and-measure quantum protocols using devices whose behavior must not be characterized nor trusted, except for a single assumption on the dimension of the Hilbert space characterizing the quantum carriers. Here, we propose instead to constrain the quantum carriers through a bound on the mean value of a well-chosen observable. This modified assumption is physically better motivated than a dimension bound and closer to the description of actual experiments. In particular, we consider quantum optical schemes where the source emits quantum states described in an infinite-dimensional Fock space and model our assumption as an upper bound on the average photon number in the emitted states. We characterize the set of correlations that may be exhibited in the simplest possible scenario compatible with our new framework, based on two energy-constrained state preparations and a two-outcome measurement. Interestingly, we uncover the existence of quantum correlations exceeding the set of classical correlations that can be produced by devices behaving in a purely pre-determined fashion (possibly including shared randomness). This feature suggests immediate applications to certified randomness generation. Along this line, we analyze the achievable correlations in several prepare-and-measure optical schemes with a mean photon number constraint and demonstrate that they allow for the generation of certified randomness. Our simplest optical scheme works by the on-off keying of an attenuated laser source followed by photocounting. It opens the path to more sophisticated energy-constrained semi-device-independent quantum cryptography protocols, such as quantum key distribution.
The Hilbert space dimension of a quantum system is the most basic quantifier of its information content. Lower bounds on the dimension can be certified in a device-independent way, based only on observed statistics. We highlight that some such "dimension witnesses" capture only the presence of systems of some dimension, which in a sense is trivial, not the capacity of performing information processing on them, which is the point of experimental efforts to control high-dimensional systems. In order to capture this aspect, we introduce the notion of irreducible dimension of a quantum behavior. This dimension can be certified, and we provide a witness for irreducible dimension four.
We discuss upper bounds on the rate at which unitary evolution governed by a nonlocal Hamiltonian can generate entanglement in a bipartite system. Given a bipartite Hamiltonian H coupling two finite dimensional particles A and B, the entangling rate is shown to be upper bounded by $c\text{ }\text{log}(d)\ensuremath{\Vert}H\ensuremath{\Vert}$, where d is the smallest dimension of the interacting particles, $\ensuremath{\Vert}H\ensuremath{\Vert}$ is the operator norm of H, and c is a constant close to 1. Under certain restrictions on the initial state we prove an analogous upper bound for the ancilla-assisted entangling rate with a constant c that does not depend upon dimensions of local ancillas. The restriction is that the initial state has at most two distinct Schmidt coefficients (each coefficient may have arbitrarily large multiplicity). Our proof is based on analysis of a mixing rate---a functional measuring how fast entropy can be produced if one mixes a time-independent state with a state evolving unitarily.
Abstract The violation of a Bell inequality implies the existence of nonlocality, making device-independent randomness certification possible. This paper derives a tight upper bound for the maximal quantum violation of Gisin’s elegant Bell inequality (EBI) for arbitrary two-qubit states, along with the constraints required to achieve this bound. This method provides the necessary and sufficient conditions for violating the EBI for several quantum states, including pure two-qubit states and the Werner states. The lower bound of certifiable global randomness is analyzed based on the tight upper bound of the EBI for pure two-qubit states, with a comparison to the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality. The relationship between the noise level and the lower bound of certifiable global randomness with respect to the Werner states is also explored, and the comparisons with both the CHSH inequality and the chained inequality are given. The results indicate that when the state approaches a maximally entangled state within specific quantified ranges, the EBI demonstrates advantages over both the CHSH inequality and the chained inequality, providing theoretical guidance for experimental device-independent quantum random number generation.