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arXiv:2009.05069 · Physical Review A

Toward correlation self-testing of quantum theory in the adaptive Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt game

Mirjam Weilenmann, Roger Colbeck

Published Aug 6, 2020• 9 citations
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Abstract

Correlation self-testing of a theory addresses the question of whether we can identify the set of correlations realizable in a theory from its performance in a particular information processing task. Applied to quantum theory it aims to identify an information processing task whose optimal performance is achieved only by theories realizing the same correlations as quantum theory in any causal structure. In M. Weilenmann and R. Colbeck [Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 060406 (2020)], we introduce a candidate task for this---the adaptive Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) game. Here, we analyze the maximum probability of winning this game in different generalized probabilistic theories. We show that theories with a joint state space given by the minimal or the maximal tensor product are inferior to quantum theory, before considering other tensor products in theories whose elementary systems have various two-dimensional state spaces. For these, we find no theories that outperform quantum theory in the adaptive CHSH game and prove that it is impossible to recover the quantum performance in various cases. This is the first step towards a general solution that, if successful, will have wide-ranging consequences, in particular, enabling an experiment that could rule out all theories in which the set of realizable correlations does not coincide with the quantum set.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.102.022203

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Correlation self-testing of a theory addresses the question of whether we can identify the set of correlations realizable in a theory from its performance in a particular information processing task. Applied to quantum theory it aims to identify an information processing task whose optimal performance is achieved only by theories realizing the same correlations as quantum theory in any causal structure. In M. Weilenmann and R. Colbeck [Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 060406 (2020)], we introduce a candidate task for this---the adaptive Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) game. Here, we analyze the maximum probability of winning this game in different generalized probabilistic theories. We show that theories with a joint state space given by the minimal or the maximal tensor product are inferior to quantum theory, before considering other tensor products in theories whose elementary systems have various two-dimensional state spaces. For these, we find no theories that outperform quantum theory in the adaptive CHSH game and prove that it is impossible to recover the quantum performance in various cases. This is the first step towards a general solution that, if successful, will have wide-ranging consequences, in particular, enabling an experiment that could rule out all theories in which the set of realizable correlations does not coincide with the quantum set.
Correlation self-testing of quantum theory involves identifying a task or set of tasks whose optimal performance can be achieved only by theories that can realise the same set of correlations as quantum theory in every causal structure. Following this approach, previous work has ruled out various classes of generalised probabilistic theories whose joint state spaces have a certain regularity in the sense of a (discrete) rotation symmetry of the bipartite state spaces. Here we consider theories whose bipartite state spaces lack this regularity. We form them by taking the convex hull of all the local states and a finite number of non-local states. We show that a criterion of compositional consistency is needed in such theories: for a measurement effect to be valid, there must exist at least one measurement that it is part of. This goes beyond previous consistency criteria and corresponds to a strengthening of the no-restriction hypothesis. We show that quantum theory outperforms these theories in a task called the adaptive CHSH game, which shows that they can be ruled out experimentally. We further show a connection between compositional consistency and Tsirelson's bound.
The Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality (CHSH) is one of the most popular and well-studied witnesses of Bell's theorem, separating classical from quantum correlations. In this work, for every $d\ensuremath{\ge}2$, we present a generalization of the CHSH inequality with the property that maximal violation is achieved uniquely by the maximally entangled state of local dimension ddd. This provides an avenue for device-independent certification of maximally entangled states of arbitrary local dimension.
Self-testing has been a rich area of study in quantum information theory. It allows an experimenter to interact classically with a black box quantum system and to test that a specific entangled state was present and a specific set of measurements were performed. Recently, self-testing has been central to high-profile results in complexity theory as seen in the work on entangled games PCP of Natarajan and Vidick (FOCS 2018), iterated compression by Fitzsimons et al.\ (STOC 2019), and NEEXP in MIP* due to Natarajan and Wright (FOCS 2019). The most studied self-test is the CHSH game which features a bipartite system with two isolated devices. This game certifies the presence of a single EPR entangled state and the use of anti-commuting Pauli measurements. Most of the self-testing literature has focused on extending these results to self-test for tensor products of EPR states and tensor products of Pauli measurements.In this work, we introduce an algebraic generalization of CHSH by viewing it as a linear constraint system (LCS) game, exhibiting self-testing properties that are qualitatively different. These provide the first example of LCS games that self-test non-Pauli operators resolving an open question posed by Coladangelo and Stark (QIP 2017). Our games also provide a self-test for states other than the maximally entangled state, and hence resolves the open question posed by Cleve and Mittal (ICALP 2012). Additionally, our games have 1 bit question and log⁡n bit answer lengths making them suitable candidates for complexity theoretic application. This work is the first step towards a general theory of self-testing arbitrary groups. In order to obtain our results, we exploit connections between sum of squares proofs, non-commutative ring theory, and the Gowers-Hatami theorem from approximate representation theory. A crucial part of our analysis is to introduce a sum of squares framework that generalizes the solution group of Cleve, Liu, and Slofstra (Journal of Mathematical Physics 2017) to the non-pseudo-telepathic regime. Finally, we give a game that is not a self-test by "gluing" together two copies of the magic square game. Our results suggest a richer landscape of self-testing phenomena than previously considered.
While there exist theories that have states more strongly entangled than quantum theory, in the sense that they show Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) values above Tsirelson's bound, all known examples of such theories have a strictly smaller set of measurements. Therefore, in tasks that require both bipartite states and measurements, they do not perform better than quantum mechanics. One of the simplest information processing tasks involving both bipartite states and measurements is that of entanglement swapping. In this paper, we study entanglement swapping in generalized probabilistic theories (GPTs). In particular, we introduce the iterated CHSH game, which measures the power of a GPT to preserve nonclassical correlations, in terms of the largest CHSH value obtainable after nnn rounds of entanglement swapping. Our main result is the construction of a GPT that achieves a CHSH value of 4 after an arbitrary number of rounds. This addresses a question about the optimality of quantum theory for such games recently raised by Weilenmann and Colbeck. One challenge faced when treating this problem is that there seems to be no general framework for constructing GPTs in which entanglement swapping is a well-defined operation. Therefore, we introduce an algorithmic construction that turns a bipartite GPT into a multipartite GPT that supports entanglement swapping, if consistently possible.
Self-testing usually refers to the task of taking a given set of observed correlations that are assumed to arise via a process that is accurately described by quantum theory, and trying to infer the quantum state and measurements. In other words it is concerned with the question of whether we can tell what quantum black-box devices are doing by looking only at their input-output behavior and is known to be possible in several cases. Here we introduce a more general question: is it possible to self-test a theory, and, in particular, quantum theory? More precisely, we ask whether within a particular causal structure there are tasks that can only be performed in theories that have the same correlations as quantum mechanics in any scenario. We present a candidate task for such a correlation self-test and analyze it in a range of generalized probabilistic theories (GPTs), showing that none of these perform better than quantum theory. A generalization of our results showing that all nonquantum GPTs are strictly inferior to quantum mechanics for this task would point to a new way to axiomatize quantum theory, and enable an experimental test that simultaneously rules out such GPTs.
A long-standing problem in the foundations of quantum mechanics is to identify a physical principle that explains why algebraically maximal violations of Bell inequalities can generally not be achieved in Nature. One recently proposed approach considers iterated Bell tests, where a Bell test is performed on a state that has undergone several rounds of entanglement swapping. Obtaining large violations in this scenario is more demanding, because it requires a theory to have both highly entangled states and highly entangled measurements. It has been conjectured that the maximal quantum mechanical Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH)-value of 222\sqrt222​ might be optimal for any probabilistic theory which, like quantum mechanics, maintains its CHSH-value after an arbitrary number of rounds of entanglement swapping. However, in a previous paper, we have exhibited a first example of a probabilistic theory that can sustain a CHSH value of 444 in this setting. In this work, further investigating this property, we give a classification of all general probabilistic theories (GPTs) whose CHSH value is stable in the above sense. The problem reduces to a representation-theoretic condition that allows for exactly seven solutions. The GPT from our previous work showed some counter-intuitive features, e.g. that the local state space had a higher dimension than seemed necessary to realize CHSH tests. The classification shows that this is necessarily so. Along the way, we generalize the concept of self-testing to GPTs.