Quantum de Finetti theorems are a useful tool in the study of correlations in quantum multipartite states. In this paper we prove two new quantum de Finetti theorems, both showing that under tests formed by local measurements in each of the subsystems one can get a much improved error dependence on the dimension of the subsystems. We also obtain similar results for non-signaling probability distributions. We give the following applications of the results to quantum complexity theory, polynomial optimization, and quantum information theory: We prove the optimality of the Chen-Drucker protocol for 3-SAT, under the assumption there is no subexponential-time algorithm for SAT. In the protocol a prover sends to a verifier √n polylog(n) unentangled quantum states, each composed of O(log(n)) qubits, as a proof of the satisfiability of a 3-SAT instance with n variables and O(n) clauses. The quantum verifier checks the validity of the proof by performing local measurements on each of the proofs and classically processing the outcomes. We show that any similar protocol with O(n1/2 - ε) qubits would imply a exp (n1 - 2ε polylog(n))-time algorithm for 3-SAT. We show that the maximum winning probability of free games (in which the questions to each prover are chosen independently) can be estimated by linear programming in time exp(O(log|Q| + log2|A|/ε2) ), with |Q| and |A| the question and answer alphabet sizes, respectively, matching the performance of a previously known algorithm due to Aaronson, Impagliazzo, Moshkovitz, and Shor. This result follows from a new monogamy relation for non-locality, showing that k-extendible non-signaling distributions give at most a O(k-1/2) advantage over classical strategies for free games. We also show that 3-SAT with n variables can be reduced to obtaining a constant error approximation of the maximum winning probability under entangled strategies of O(√n)-player one-round non-local games, in which only two players are selected to send O(√n)-bit messages. We show that the optimization of certain polynomials over the complex hypersphere can be performed in quasipolynomial time in the number of variables $n$ by considering O(log(n)) rounds of the Sum-of-Squares (Parrilo/Lasserre) hierarchy of semidefinite programs. This can be considered an analogue to the hypersphere of a similar known results for the simplex. As an application to entanglement theory, we find a quasipolynomial-time algorithm for deciding multipartite separability. We consider a quantum tomography result due to Aaronson -- showing that given an unknown n-qubit state one can perform tomography that works well for most observables by measuring only O(n) independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) copies of the state -- and relax the assumption of having i.i.d copies of the state to merely the ability to select subsystems at random from a quantum multipartite state. The proofs of the new quantum de Finetti theorems are based on information theory, in particular on the chain rule of mutual information. The results constitute improvements and generalizations of a recent de Finetti theorem due to Brandao, Christandl and Yard.
Quantum de Finetti theorems are a useful tool in the study of correlations in quantum multipartite states. In this paper we prove two new quantum de Finetti theorems, both showing that under tests formed by local measurements in each of the subsystems one can get a much improved error dependence on the dimension of the subsystems. We also obtain similar results for non-signaling probability distributions. We give the following applications of the results to quantum complexity theory, polynomial optimization, and quantum information theory: We prove the optimality of the Chen-Drucker protocol for 3-SAT, under the assumption there is no subexponential-time algorithm for SAT. In the protocol a prover sends to a verifier √n polylog(n) unentangled quantum states, each composed of O(log(n)) qubits, as a proof of the satisfiability of a 3-SAT instance with n variables and O(n) clauses. The quantum verifier checks the validity of the proof by performing local measurements on each of the proofs and classically processing the outcomes. We show that any similar protocol with O(n1/2 - ε) qubits would imply a exp (n1 - 2ε polylog(n))-time algorithm for 3-SAT. We show that the maximum winning probability of free games (in which the questions to each prover are chosen independently) can be estimated by linear programming in time exp(O(log|Q| + log2|A|/ε2) ), with |Q| and |A| the question and answer alphabet sizes, respectively, matching the performance of a previously known algorithm due to Aaronson, Impagliazzo, Moshkovitz, and Shor. This result follows from a new monogamy relation for non-locality, showing that k-extendible non-signaling distributions give at most a O(k-1/2) advantage over classical strategies for free games. We also show that 3-SAT with n variables can be reduced to obtaining a constant error approximation of the maximum winning probability under entangled strategies of O(√n)-player one-round non-local games, in which only two players are selected to send O(√n)-bit messages. We show that the optimization of certain polynomials over the complex hypersphere can be performed in quasipolynomial time in the number of variables n by considering O(log(n)) rounds of the Sum-of-Squares (Parrilo/Lasserre) hierarchy of semidefinite programs. This can be considered an analogue to the hypersphere of a similar known results for the simplex. As an application to entanglement theory, we find a quasipolynomial-time algorithm for deciding multipartite separability. We consider a quantum tomography result due to Aaronson -- showing that given an unknown n-qubit state one can perform tomography that works well for most observables by measuring only O(n) independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) copies of the state -- and relax the assumption of having i.i.d copies of the state to merely the ability to select subsystems at random from a quantum multipartite state. The proofs of the new quantum de Finetti theorems are based on information theory, in particular on the chain rule of mutual information. The results constitute improvements and generalizations of a recent de Finetti theorem due to Brandao, Christandl and Yard.
In a recent landmark result [Ji et al., arXiv:2001.04383 (2020)], it was shown that approximating the value of a two-player game is undecidable when the players are allowed to share quantum states of unbounded dimension. In this paper, we study the computational complexity of two-player games when the dimension of the quantum systems is bounded by T. More specifically, we give a semidefinite program of size exp(𝒪(T^{12}(log²(AT)+log(Q)log(AT))/ε²)) to compute additive ε-approximations on the value of two-player free games with T× T-dimensional quantum entanglement, where A and Q denote the number of answers and questions of the game, respectively. For fixed dimension T, this scales polynomially in Q and quasi-polynomially in A, thereby improving on previously known approximation algorithms for which worst-case run-time guarantees are at best exponential in Q and A. For the proof, we make a connection to the quantum separability problem and employ improved multipartite quantum de Finetti theorems with linear constraints that we derive via quantum entropy inequalities.
We prove a version of the quantum de Finetti theorem: permutation-invariant quantum states are well approximated as a probabilistic mixture of multifold product states. The approximation is measured by distinguishability under measurements that are implementable by fully-one-way local operations and classical communication (LOCC). Our result strengthens Brandão and Harrow's de Finetti theorem where a kind of partially-one-way LOCC measurements was used for measuring the approximation, with essentially the same error bound. As main applications, we show (i) a quasipolynomial-time algorithm which detects multipartite entanglement with an amount larger than an arbitrarily small constant (measured with a variant of the relative entropy of entanglement), and (ii) a proof that in quantum Merlin-Arthur proof systems, polynomially many provers are not more powerful than a single prover when the verifier is restricted to one-way LOCC operations.
Quantum entanglement, and the resulting peculiar non-classical correlations are one of the most counter-intuitive aspects of quantum mechanics.
The formalism of interactive games from computational complexity theory provides a useful framework in which to understand the power of entanglement. In an interactive game, a verifier interacts with a number of infinitely powerful provers who are allowed to share quantum entanglement but otherwise can't communicate. The ability of the verifier to extract useful information from the provers, whom he does not trust, provides an interesting measure of the ability of the provers to coordinate using their shared entanglement. Two particular interactive games we'll look at are Magic Square and 3SAT.
The Magic Square game is the iconic example of a game where two classical provers cannot perfectly coordinate their strategies using shared randomness, but quantum provers with shared entanglement can win with probability 1. We show that by adding an extra prover, we disallow perfect cheating. For 3SAT with three provers we also show that perfect cheating is not possible.
We then generalize the results for Magic Square and 3SAT by looking at non-commuting provers, a superset of entangled provers (communication is allowed, but operators applied by different provers must commute). Using this method, we obtain a generalized Tsirelson inequality that we apply to the Magic Square. Hence, we are able to give provably optimal strategies for the general Magic Square with n players. We also recover a similar result for 3SAT as with entangled provers, and we improve on it by showing that the gap is inverse exponential in the input size.
The no-signaling principle, which forbids faster than light communication, is a fundamental constraint on the non-local correlations resulting from quantum entanglement. However, no-signaling allows distributions that are more general than those arising from quantum mechanics. In particular, using a specific unit of general non-local correlation (the Popescu-Rohlich box), we show that there are classes that are equal to NEXP classically, but collapse to AM once such correlations are allowed. We also show that MIP where the verifier only looks at the XOR of the answers collapses to PSPACE. For the second approach, we show that by writing general non-local correlations as linear constraints, MIP is included in EXP under such correlations (vs NEXP classically).
We can extend these results to entangled quantum provers, by formulating an artificial MIP-like class built on a promise problem, that classically is equal to NEXP, but that also collapses to AM when quantum correlations are present.
Standard finite quantum de Finetti theorems approximate the k-system marginals of permutation-invariant states of n-systems by mixtures of independent and identically distributed (iid) states, usually in trace distance. We prove both standard and Renner's exponential de Finetti theorems in the stronger form of operator inequalities, implying bounds in every Schatten norm and for every quantum Rényi divergence satisfying data processing. In the standard case, for fixed local dimension, our k/n error bound in max-relative entropy improves on the previously best known k2/n scaling, even in the classical setting. The operator-inequality approach is particularly suited to study channel de Finetti representations because operator order between Choi states is equivalent to completely positive (CP) order between the underlying channels. For permutation-covariant channels N(n):A⊗n→B⊗n, where dA=dimA, we prove that the k-system reduced channel is CP-dominated by a mixture of tensor-power channels with error O(k/n) and polynomial dependence on the local dimensions, addressing a question raised by Berta et al. [Math. Program. 194, 781-829 (2022)]. Under the no-signalling condition, we also prove an exponential channel de Finetti theorem where the approximating mixture consists of Choi-almost-iid channels, whose normalized Choi states are almost-iid in the sense of Mazzola-Sutter-Renner. In the case of r defects, the representation error is at most poly(n)(2dA4k3/(nr2))(r+1)/2 and decays exponentially in n for a suitable choice of parameters r and k.
We prove optimal finite quantum de Finetti upper bounds. Given a bosonic state ρN∈D(SymN(Cd)), there is a probability measure ν on the unit sphere such that ρN(2)−∫∣u⟩⟨u∣⊗2dν(u)1≤N−1d−1. By purification, the bosonic theorem also gives the optimal O(d/N) upper bound for arbitrary exchangeable states. These results settle the dimension dependence left open by Christandl, König, Mitchison, and Renner (CMP 2007). The proof casts de Finetti approximation as sum-of-squares rounding and applies the argmax method of Jeronimo, Wu, and Xu (manuscript 2026).
More generally, t-site marginals satisfy O(td/N) bosonic and O(td/N) permutation-invariant bounds. Our proof formulates de Finetti approximation as the integrality gap of a symmetric-extension semidefinite program and rounds an optimum by the argmax principle. The sharp bounds have several consequences. For every fixed ε∈(0,1), we construct a channel with input dimension D=exp(Oε(dlogd))=exp(o(d)) whose outputs are ε-close to separable states of local dimension d and whose image contains every such separable state, thereby refuting Watrous's disentangler conjecture. We also obtain deterministic exp(O(d/ε))-time algorithms for explicit Best Separable State without perfect completeness and for trace-distance separability testing.
Finally, spectral truncation gives the first dimension-free bosonic de Finetti theorem in Hilbert--Schmidt distance, with the optimal rate Θ(N−1/2) when the dimension may grow.
When analysing quantum information processing protocols, one has to deal with large entangled systems, each consisting of many subsystems. To make this analysis feasible, it is often necessary to identify some additional structures. de Finetti theorems provide such a structure for the case where certain symmetries hold. More precisely, they relate states that are invariant under permutations of subsystems to states in which the subsystems are independent of each other. This relation plays an important role in various areas, e.g., in quantum cryptography or state tomography, where permutation invariant systems are ubiquitous. The known de Finetti theorems usually refer to the internal quantum state of a system and depend on its dimension. Here, we prove a different de Finetti theorem where systems are modelled in terms of their statistics under measurements. This is necessary for a large class of applications widely considered today, such as device independent protocols, where the underlying systems and the dimensions are unknown and the entire analysis is based on the observed correlations.