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arXiv:1210.0548 · Physical Review A

All entangled states display some hidden nonlocality

Yeong-Cherng Liang, Lluís Masanes, Denis Rosset

Published Nov 19, 2012• 40 citations
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Abstract

A well-known manifestation of quantum entanglement is that it may lead to correlations that are inexplicable within the framework of a locally causal theory---a fact that is demonstrated by the quantum violation of Bell inequalities. The precise relationship between quantum entanglement and the violation of Bell inequalities is, however, not well understood. While it is known that entanglement is necessary for such a violation, it is not clear whether all entangled states violate a Bell inequality, even in the scenario where one allows joint operations on multiple copies of the state and local filtering operations before the Bell experiment. In this paper we show that all entangled states, or more precisely, all not-fully-separable states of arbitrary Hilbert space dimension and arbitrary number of parties, violate a Bell inequality when combined with another state which on its own cannot violate the same Bell inequality. This result shows that quantum entanglement and quantum nonlocality are in some sense equivalent, thus giving an affirmative answer to the aforementioned open question. It follows from our result that two entangled states that are apparently useless in demonstrating quantum nonlocality via a specific Bell inequality can be combined to give a Bell violation of the same inequality. Explicit examples of such activation phenomenon are provided.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.86.052115

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A well-known manifestation of quantum entanglement is that it may lead to correlations that are inexplicable within the framework of a locally causal theory---a fact that is demonstrated by the quantum violation of Bell inequalities. The precise relationship between quantum entanglement and the violation of Bell inequalities is, however, not well understood. While it is known that entanglement is necessary for such a violation, it is not clear whether all entangled states violate a Bell inequality, even in the scenario where one allows joint operations on multiple copies of the state and local filtering operations before the Bell experiment. In this paper we show that all entangled states, or more precisely, all not-fully-separable states of arbitrary Hilbert space dimension and arbitrary number of parties, violate a Bell inequality when combined with another state which on its own cannot violate the same Bell inequality. This result shows that quantum entanglement and quantum nonlocality are in some sense equivalent, thus giving an affirmative answer to the aforementioned open question. It follows from our result that two entangled states that are apparently useless in demonstrating quantum nonlocality via a specific Bell inequality can be combined to give a Bell violation of the same inequality. Explicit examples of such activation phenomenon are provided.
We consider Bell tests in which the distant observers can perform local filtering before testing a Bell inequality. Notably, in this setup, certain entangled states admitting a local hidden variable model in the standard Bell scenario can nevertheless violate a Bell inequality after filtering, displaying so-called hidden nonlocality. Here we ask whether all entangled states can violate a Bell inequality after well-chosen local filtering. We answer this question in the negative by showing that there exist entangled states without hidden nonlocality. Specifically, we prove that some two-qubit Werner states still admit a local hidden variable model after any possible local filtering on a single copy of the state.
It is one of the most remarkable features of quantum physics that measurements on spatially separated systems cannot always be described by a locally causal theory. In such a theory, the outcomes of local measurements are determined in advance solely by some unknown (or hidden) variables and the choice of local measurements. Correlations that are allowed within the framework of a locally causal theory are termed classical. Typically, the fact that quantum mechanics does not always result in classical correlations is revealed by the violation of Bell inequalities, which are constraints that have to be satisfied by any classical correlations. It has been known for a long time that entanglement is necessary to demonstrate nonclassical correlations, and hence a Bell inequality violation. However, since some entangled quantum states are known to admit explicit locally causal models, the exact role of entanglement in Bell inequality violation has remained obscure. This thesis provides both a comprehensive review on these issues as well as a report on new discoveries made to clarify the relationship between entanglement and Bell inequality violation. In particular, within the framework of a standard Bell experiment, i.e., a Bell inequality test that is directly performed on a single copy of a quantum state r, we have derived two algorithms to determine, respectively, a lower bound and an upper bound on the strength of correlations that r can offer for any given Bell inequality. Both of these algorithms make use convex optimization techniques in the form of a semidefinite program. By examples, we show that these algorithms can often be used in tandem, in conjunction with convexity arguments, to determine if a quantum state can offer nonclassical correlations and hence violates a given Bell inequality. On the other hand, since a standard Bell experiment typically involves measurements over many copies of the quantum systems, we have also investigated the possibility of enhancing the strength of nonclassical correlation by, instead, performing collective measurements on multiple copies of the quantum systems. Our findings show that even without postselection, such joint measurements may also lead to stronger nonclassical correlations, and hence a better Bell inequality violation. Meanwhile, previous studies have indicated that entangled state admitting locally causal models may still lead to observable nonclassical correlations if, prior to a standard Bell experiment, the state is subjected to some appropriate local preprocessing. This phenomenon of hidden nonlocality was discovered more than a decade ago, but to date, it is still not known if all entangled states can demonstrate nonclassical correlations through these more sophisticated Bell experiments. A key result in this thesis then consists of showing that for all bipartite entangled states, observable nonclassical correlations, in the form of a Bell-CHSH inequality violation, can indeed be derived if we allow both local preprocessing and the usage of shared ancillary state which by itself does not violate the Bell-CHSH inequality. This establishes a kind of equivalence between bipartite entanglement and states that cannot be simulated by classical correlations. In summary, for a standard Bell experiment where no local preprocessing on a quantum state r is allowed, we have provided two algorithms that can be used in tandem to determine if r can be simulated by a locally causal theory, whereas in the scenario where local preprocessing is allowed, we have demonstrated that bipartite entangled states are precisely those which cannot always be simulated classically.
It is a well-established fact that some quantum correlations can be nonlocal, meaning that they cannot be described by a local hidden variable model. Certain quantum correlations have a form of nonlocality so strong that they cannot be reproduced even by models having an arbitrarily small local hidden variable component. These correlations are called fully nonlocal and lead to Bell inequalities in which the maximum quantum value saturates the non-signaling bound. A well-known example of this effect, which is also referred to as quantum pseudo-telepathy or all-versus-nothing proofs of nonlocality, is the quantum distribution fulfilling the Peres-Mermin square, in which the underlying state is a 4×44\times44×4 dimensional maximally entangled state. Other examples of full nonlocality are known but, so far, all of them are for maximally entangled states and it is an open question whether maximal entanglement is necessary for full nonlocality. In this work, we first establish a link between full nonlocality and the concept of antidistinguishability of quantum states. We use this connection to show that in every bipartite d×dd\times dd×d Hilbert space, with d≥3d\geq3d≥3, there are non-maximally entangled states that are fully nonlocal. In fact, we derive simple sufficient conditions for full nonlocality that are only based on the smallest and largest Schmidt coefficients. We also show that in every dimension there exist pure entangled states that do not exhibit full nonlocality. Finally, we show that all pure entangled states can be activated to show full nonlocality in the many-copy scenario.
We consider Bell tests in which the distant observers can perform local filtering before testing a Bell inequality. Notably, in this setup, certain entangled states admitting a local hidden variable model in the standard Bell scenario can nevertheless violate a Bell inequality after filtering, displaying so-called hidden nonlocality. Here we ask whether all entangled states can violate a Bell inequality after well-chosen local filtering. We answer this question in the negative by showing that there exist entangled states without hidden nonlocality. Specifically, we prove that some two-qubit Werner states still admit a local hidden variable model after any possible local filtering on a single copy of the state.
It is one of the most remarkable features of quantum physics that measurements on spatially separated systems cannot always be described by a locally causal theory. In such a theory, the outcomes of local measurements are determined in advance solely by some unknown (or hidden) variables and the choice of local measurements. Correlations that are allowed within the framework of a locally causal theory are termed classical. Typically, the fact that quantum mechanics does not always result in classical correlations is revealed by the violation of Bell inequalities, which are constraints that have to be satisfied by any classical correlations. It has been known for a long time that entanglement is necessary to demonstrate nonclassical correlations, and hence a Bell inequality violation. However, since some entangled quantum states are known to admit explicit locally causal models, the exact role of entanglement in Bell inequality violation has remained obscure. This thesis provides both a comprehensive review on these issues as well as a report on new discoveries made to clarify the relationship between entanglement and Bell inequality violation.
Bell nonlocality refers to correlations between two distant, entangled particles that challenge classical notions of local causality. Beyond its foundational significance, nonlocality is crucial for device-independent technologies like quantum key distribution and randomness generation. Nonlocality quickly deteriorates in the presence of noise, and restoring nonlocal correlations requires additional resources. These often come in the form of many instances of the input state and joint measurements, incurring a significant resource overhead. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that single copies of Bell-local states, incapable of violating any standard Bell inequality, can give rise to nonlocality after being embedded into a quantum network of multiple parties. We subject the initial entangled state to a quantum channel that broadcasts part of the state to two independent receivers and certify the nonlocality in the resulting network by violating a tailored Bell-like inequality. We obtain these results without making any assumptions about the prepared states, the quantum channel, or the validity of quantum theory. Our findings have fundamental implications for nonlocality and enable the practical use of nonlocal correlations in real-world applications, even in scenarios dominated by noise.