We analyze the continuous measurement of two noncommuting observables for a qubit, and investigate whether the simultaneously observed noisy signals are consistent with the evolution of an equivalent classical system. Following the approach outlined by Leggett and Garg, we show that the readouts violate macrorealistic inequalities for arbitrarily short temporal correlations. Moreover, the derived inequalities are manifestly violated even in the absence of Hamiltonian evolution, unlike for Leggett-Garg inequalities that use a single continuous measurement. Such a violation should indicate the failure of at least one postulate of macrorealism: either physical quantities do not have well-defined values at all times or the measurement process itself disturbs what is being measured. Nevertheless, for measurements of equal strength we are able to construct a classical stochastic model for a spin that perfectly emulates both the qubit evolution and the observed noisy signals, thus emulating the violations; interestingly, this model also requires an unphysical noise to emulate the readouts, which effectively restricts the ability of an observer to learn information about the spin.
We analyze the continuous measurement of two noncommuting observables for a qubit, and investigate whether the simultaneously observed noisy signals are consistent with the evolution of an equivalent classical system. Following the approach outlined by Leggett and Garg, we show that the readouts violate macrorealistic inequalities for arbitrarily short temporal correlations. Moreover, the derived inequalities are manifestly violated even in the absence of Hamiltonian evolution, unlike for Leggett-Garg inequalities that use a single continuous measurement. Such a violation should indicate the failure of at least one postulate of macrorealism: either physical quantities do not have well-defined values at all times or the measurement process itself disturbs what is being measured. Nevertheless, for measurements of equal strength we are able to construct a classical stochastic model for a spin that perfectly emulates both the qubit evolution and the observed noisy signals, thus emulating the violations; interestingly, this model also requires an unphysical noise to emulate the readouts, which effectively restricts the ability of an observer to learn information about the spin.
While quantum theory has been tested to an incredible degree on microscopic scales, quantum effects are seldom observed in our everyday macroscopic world. The curious results of applying quantum mechanics to macroscopic objects are perhaps best illustrated by Erwin Schrödinger's famous thought experiment, where a cat can be put into a superposition state of being both dead and alive. Obviously, these quantum predictions are in stark contradiction to our common experience. Even with plenty of theoretical explanations put forward to explain this discrepancy, a large number of questions about the frontier between the quantum and the classical world remain unanswered. To distinguish between classical and quantum behavior, two fundamental concepts inherent to classical physics have been established over the years: The world view of local realism limits the power of classical experiments to establish correlations over space, while the world view of macroscopic realism (or macrorealism) restricts temporal correlations. Necessary conditions for both world views have been formulated in the form of Bell and Leggett-Garg inequalities, and Bell inequalities have been shown to be violated by quantum mechanics through increasingly conclusive experiments. Furthermore, many challenging steps towards convincing violations of macrorealism have been taken in a number of recent experiments. In the first part of this thesis, conditions for macrorealism are analyzed in detail. Two necessary conditions for macrorealism, the original Leggett-Garg inequality and the recently proposed no-signaling in time condition, are presented. It is then shown that a combination of no-signaling in time conditions is not only necessary but also sufficient for the existence of a macrorealistic description. Finally, an operational formulation of no-signaling in time, in terms of positive-operator valued measurements and Hamiltonians, is derived. In the next part, we argue that these results lead to a suitable definition of classical behavior. In particular, we provide a formalism to judge the classicality of measurements and time evolutions. We then proceed to apply it to a number of exemplary measurement operators and Hamiltonians. Finally, we argue for the importance of spontaneously realized Hamiltonians in our intuition of classical behavior. Next, differences between local realism and macrorealism are analyzed. For this purpose, the probability polytopes for spatially and temporally separated experiments are compared, and a fundamental difference in the power of quantum mechanics to build both types of correlations is discovered. This result shows that Fine's theorem, which states that a set of Bell inequalities is necessary and sufficient for local realism, is not transferable to macrorealism. Thus, (Leggett-Garg) inequalities are in principle not well-suited for tests of macrorealism, as they can never form a necessary and sufficient condition, and unnecessarily restrict the violating parameter space. No-signaling in time is both better suited and more strongly motivated from the underlying physical theory. In the final part of this thesis, a concrete experimental setup for implementing quantum experiments with macroscopic objects is proposed. It consists of a superconducting micro-sphere in the Meißner state, which is levitated by magnetic fields. Through its expelled magnetic field, the sphere's center-of-mass motion couples to a superconducting quantum circuit. Properly tuned, ground state cooling can be realized, since the sphere's motion is extremely well isolated from the surrounding environment. This setup therefore is a promising candidate for the observation of quantum effects in macroscopic systems.
Macrorealistic description governing the classical realm is known to get uprooted in the quantum domain. The Leggett-Garg inequality [A. J. Leggett and A. Garg, Phys. Rev. Lett. 54, 857 (1985)] proposes to probe the macrorealistic limit emerging from the quantum scenario. It places a bound on the linear combinations of temporal correlations of observables measured sequentially at different time intervals. Violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality, up to the so-called temporal Tsirelson bound (TTB), has been realized in the quantum domain. It is important to understand whether quantum theory permits larger violation beyond the TTB and up to the algebraic maximum value of the Leggett-Garg inequality. To this end, it has been shown [C. Budroni and C. Emary, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 050401 (2014)] that a three-term Leggett-Garg inequality can be violated beyond the TTB 3/2 in the time evolution of N>2 level quantum systems by choosing suitable measurement schemes and state-update rules. Furthermore, it is revealed that the algebraic maximum value 3 can be realized in the limit $N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$. Their measurement scheme rules out violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality beyond the TTB by a qubit. Being genuinely quantum in nature, we ask whether such enhanced violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality could be witnessed in a qubit itself. Here, we show that a qubit undergoing time evolution generated by a non-Hermitian PT-symmetric Hamiltonian indeed violates the three-term Leggett-Garg inequality beyond the TTB and up to its algebraic maximum value 3.
So far it has been shown that the quantum dynamics cannot be described as a classical Markov process unless the number of classical states is uncountably infinite. In this Letter, we present a stochastic model with time-correlated noise that exactly reproduces any unitary evolution of a qubit and requires just four classical states. The invasive updating of only 1 bit during a measurement accounts for the quantum violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities. Unlike in a pilot-wave theory, the stochastic forces governing the jumps among the four states do not depend on the quantum state but only on the unitary evolution. This model is used to derive a local hidden variable model, augmented by 1 bit of classical communication, for simulating entangled Bell states.
Macro-realistic description of systems is based majorly on two basic intuitions about the classical world, namely, macrorealism per se, that is, the system is always in a distinct state, and non-invasive measurements, that is, measurements do not disturb the system. Given the assumption of no-signaling in time, one utilizes Leggett–Garg inequalities to observe a violation of macroscopic realism, which requires at least three measurements. In this work, we show that if one has access to shared randomness, then one can observe a violation of macroscopic realism using a single measurement even if no signaling in time is satisfied. Interestingly, using the proposed scheme one can also rule out a larger class of models, which we term macroscopic no-signaling theories that cannot violate the no-signaling in time conditions. We further construct a witness to observe the violation of macroscopic no-signaling.
Macroscopic realism is a set of assumptions about how we experience the world at a classical level. While the Leggett-Garg inequalities are temporal correlations that are violated by quantum systems not obeying such macrorealism, the no-signaling in time condition is also a necessary condition. This compares measurement outcomes with and without prior measurements. As dynamics and correlations play a central role in these measures, this paper explores the effects of regular versus chaotic dynamics on the violations of macroscopic realism. We observe a close connection between a 3 point out-of-time-order correlator and the conditional probabilities of measurement, and we find unmistakable imprints of chaos on the violations of macrorealism. We provide qualitative semiclassical reasoning for the numerical results involving a kicked top, and for two important initial states that behave very differently.
Leggett-Garg's inequalities predict sharp bounds for some classical correlation functions that address the quantum or classical nature of real-time evolutions. We experimentally observe the violations of these bounds on single- and multiqubit systems, in different settings, exploiting the IBM Quantum platform. In the multiqubit case, we introduce the Leggett-Garg-Bell's inequalities as an alternative to the previous ones. Measuring these correlation functions, we find quantum error mitigation to be essential to spot inequalities violations. Accessing only two qubit readouts, we assess Leggett-Garg-Bell's inequalities to emerge as the most efficient quantum coherence witnesses to be used for investigating quantum hardware, among those introduced. Our analysis highlights the limits of current quantum platforms, showing that the above-mentioned correlation functions deviate from theoretical prediction as the number of qubits and the depth of the circuit grow.