Following on from the notion of (first-order) causality, which generalises the notion of being tracepreserving from CP-maps to abstract processes, we give a characterization for the most general kind of map which sends causal processes to causal processes. These new, second-order causal processes enable us to treat the input processes as 'local laboratories' whose causal ordering needs not be fixed in advance. Using this characterization, we give a fully-diagrammatic proof of a non-trivial theorem: namely that being causality-preserving on separable processes implies being 'completely' causality preserving. That is, causality is preserved even when the 'local laboratories' are allowed to have ancilla systems. An immediate consequence is that preserving causality is separable processes is equivalence to preserving causality for strongly non-signalling (a.k.a. localizable) processes.
Following on from the notion of (first-order) causality, which generalises the notion of being tracepreserving from CP-maps to abstract processes, we give a characterization for the most general kind of map which sends causal processes to causal processes. These new, second-order causal processes enable us to treat the input processes as 'local laboratories' whose causal ordering needs not be fixed in advance. Using this characterization, we give a fully-diagrammatic proof of a non-trivial theorem: namely that being causality-preserving on separable processes implies being 'completely' causality preserving. That is, causality is preserved even when the 'local laboratories' are allowed to have ancilla systems. An immediate consequence is that preserving causality is separable processes is equivalence to preserving causality for strongly non-signalling (a.k.a. localizable) processes.
We present a categorical construction for modelling causal structures within a general class of process theories that include the theory of classical probabilistic processes as well as quantum theory. Unlike prior constructions within categorical quantum mechanics, the objects of this theory encode fine-grained causal relationships between subsystems and give a new method for expressing and deriving consequences for a broad class of causal structures. We show that this framework enables one to define families of processes which are consistent with arbitrary acyclic causal orderings. In particular, one can define one-way signalling (a.k.a. semi-causal) processes, non-signalling processes, and quantum n-combs. Furthermore, our framework is general enough to accommodate recently-proposed generalisations of classical and quantum theory where processes only need to have a fixed causal ordering locally, but globally allow indefinite causal ordering. To illustrate this point, we show that certain processes of this kind, such as the quantum switch, the process matrices of Oreshkov, Costa, and Brukner, and a classical three-party example due to Baumeler, Feix, and Wolf are all instances of a certain family of processes we refer to as SOCn in the appropriate category of higher-order causal processes. After defining these families of causal structures within our framework, we give derivations of their operational behaviour using simple, diagrammatic axioms. Comment: Extended version of a LICS 2017 paper with the same title
We present a categorical construction for modelling causal structures within a general class of process theories that include the theory of classical probabilistic processes as well as quantum theory. Unlike prior constructions within categorical quantum mechanics, the objects of this theory encode fine-grained causal relationships between subsystems and give a new method for expressing and deriving consequences for a broad class of causal structures. We show that this framework enables one to define families of processes which are consistent with arbitrary acyclic causal orderings. In particular, one can define one-way signalling (a.k.a. semi-causal) processes, non-signalling processes, and quantum n-combs. Furthermore, our framework is general enough to accommodate recently-proposed generalisations of classical and quantum theory where processes only need to have a fixed causal ordering locally, but globally allow indefinite causal ordering. To illustrate this point, we show that certain processes of this kind, such as the quantum switch, the process matrices of Oreshkov, Costa, and Brukner, and a classical three-party example due to Baumeler, Feix, and Wolf are all instances of a certain family of processes we refer to as SOCn in the appropriate category of higher-order causal processes. After defining these families of causal structures within our framework, we give derivations of their operational behaviour using simple, diagrammatic axioms.
The concept of causal (non)separability describes whether the causal order between parties that perform local quantum operations is well-defined or indefinite. Causal (non)separability in the general multipartite setting was introduced and studied in [Oreshkov and Giarmatzi, New J. Phys. 18, 093020 (2016); Wechs, Abbott, and Branciard, New J. Phys. 21, 013027 (2019)]. We resolve an open problem from these earlier works by showing -- using a novel "coherent teleportation technique" -- that a sufficient condition for causal separability identified in [Wechs, Abbott, and Branciard, New J. Phys. 21, 013027 (2019)] is also necessary, and thus provides a complete characterisation of multipartite causal separability. A consequence of this result is that all causally separable processes admit a realisation as generalised quantum circuits in which the order between the operations is classically controlled, known as "quantum circuits with classical control of causal order".
The idea that events are equipped with a partial causal order is central to our understanding of physics in the tested regimes: given two pointlike events A and B , either A is in the causal past of B , B is in the causal past of A , or A and B are space-like separated. Operationally, the meaning of these order relations corresponds to constraints on the possible correlations between experiments performed in the vicinities of the respective events: if A is in the causal past of B , an experimenter at A could signal to an experimenter at B but not the other way around, while if A and B are space-like separated, no signaling is possible in either direction. In the context of a concrete physical theory, the correlations compatible with a given causal configuration may obey further constraints. For instance, space-like correlations in quantum mechanics arise from local measurements on joint quantum states, while time-like correlations are established via quantum channels. Similarly to other variables, however, the causal order of a set of events could be random, and little is understood about the constraints that causality implies in this case. A main difficulty concerns the fact that the order of events can now generally depend on the operations performed at the locations of these events, since, for instance, an operation at A could influence the order in which B and C occur in A ’s future. So far, no formal theory of causality compatible with such dynamical causal order has been developed. Apart from being of fundamental interest in the context of inferring causal relations, such a theory is imperative for understanding recent suggestions that the causal order of events in quantum mechanics can be indefinite. Here, we develop such a theory in the general multipartite case. Starting from a background-independent definition of causality, we derive an iteratively formulated canonical decomposition of multipartite causal correlations. For a fixed number of settings and outcomes for each party, these correlations form a polytope whose facets define causal inequalities. The case of quantum correlations in this paradigm is captured by the process matrix formalism. We investigate the link between causality and the closely related notion of causal separability of quantum processes, which we here define rigorously in analogy with the link between Bell locality and separability of quantum states. We show that causality and causal separability are not equivalent in general by giving an example of a physically admissible tripartite quantum process that is causal but not causally separable. We also show that there are causally separable quantum processes that become non-causal if extended by supplying the parties with entangled ancillas. This motivates the concepts of extensibly causal and extensibly causally separable (ECS) processes, for which the respective property remains invariant under extension. We characterize the class of ECS quantum processes in the tripartite case via simple conditions on the form of the process matrix. We show that the processes realizable by classically controlled quantum circuits are ECS and conjecture that the reverse also holds.
Processes with indefinite causal order can arise when quantum theory is locally valid and they allow accomplishing new informational tasks. Despite recent progress, the correlations allowed in such processes have not been clearly understood. Here, we propose to study the constraints on information exchange through such processes in a paradigm of locally sequential operations. In this paradigm, we identify an information-theoretic principle constraining the correlations, termed parity erasure, which follows from the local validity of causality. We show that this principle completely characterizes the local-tomography representation of higher-order processes with indefinite causal order: among all multipartite channels, the ones describing valid higher-order processes are those and only those whose input-output correlations respect parity erasure. This approach reveals a fundamental property of information exchange in scenarios with indefinite causal structure and opens a new arena for exploring their potential applications.
A 'process theory' is any theory of systems and processes which admits sequential and parallel composition. `Terminality' unifies normalisation of pure states, trace-preservation of CP-maps, and adding up to identity of positive operators in quantum theory, and generalises this to arbitrary process theories. We show that terminality and non-signalling coincide in any process theory, provided one makes causal structure explicit. In fact, making causal structure explicit is necessary to even make sense of non-signalling in process theories. We conclude that because of its much simpler mathematical form, terminality should be taken to be a more fundamental notion than non-signalling.