Correlations in Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) scenarios, captured by assemblages of unnormalised quantum states, have recently caught the attention of the community, both from a foundational and an information-theoretic perspective. The set of quantum-realisable assemblages, or abbreviated to quantum assemblages, are those that arise from multiple parties performing local measurements on a shared quantum system. In general, deciding whether or not a given assemblage is a quantum assemblage, i.e. membership of the set of quantum assemblages, is a hard problem, and not always solvable. In this paper we introduce a hierarchy of tests where each level either determines non-membership of the set of quantum assemblages or is inconclusive. The higher the level of the hierarchy the better one can determine non-membership, and this hierarchy converges to a particular set of assemblages. Furthermore, this set to which it converges contains the quantum assemblages. Each test in the hierarchy is formulated as a semidefinite program. This hierarchy allows one to upper bound the quantum violation of a steering inequality and the quantum advantage provided by quantum EPR assemblages in a communication or information-processing task.
Correlations in Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) scenarios, captured by assemblages of unnormalised quantum states, have recently caught the attention of the community, both from a foundational and an information-theoretic perspective. The set of quantum-realisable assemblages, or abbreviated to quantum assemblages, are those that arise from multiple parties performing local measurements on a shared quantum system. In general, deciding whether or not a given assemblage is a quantum assemblage, i.e. membership of the set of quantum assemblages, is a hard problem, and not always solvable. In this paper we introduce a hierarchy of tests where each level either determines non-membership of the set of quantum assemblages or is inconclusive. The higher the level of the hierarchy the better one can determine non-membership, and this hierarchy converges to a particular set of assemblages. Furthermore, this set to which it converges contains the quantum assemblages. Each test in the hierarchy is formulated as a semidefinite program. This hierarchy allows one to upper bound the quantum violation of a steering inequality and the quantum advantage provided by quantum EPR assemblages in a communication or information-processing task.
Abstract Characterising non-classical quantum phenomena is crucial not only from a fundamental perspective, but also to better understand its capabilities for information processing and communication tasks. In this work, we focus on exploring the characterisation of Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen inference (a.k.a. steering): a signature of non-classicality manifested when one or more parties in a Bell scenario have their systems and measurements described by quantum theory, rather than being treated as black boxes. We propose a way of characterising common-cause assemblages from the correlations that arise when the trusted party performs tomographically-complete measurements on their share of the experiment, and discuss the advantages and challenges of this approach. Within this framework, we show that so-called almost quantum assemblages satisfy the principle of macroscopic noncontextuality, and demonstrate that a subset of almost quantum correlations recover almost quantum assemblages in this approach.
In a standard bipartite Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) scenario, Alice and Bob share a system prepared in an entangled state and Alice performs local measurements. One possible generalization of this setup is to allow Bob to also locally process his subsystem. Then correlations generated in such generalized EPR scenarios are examples of nonsignaling bipartite resources, called assemblages, that can exhibit postquantum behavior, i.e., cannot be generated using solely quantum systems. There exist assemblages that, despite being postquantum resources, can only generate quantum correlations in bipartite Bell-type scenarios. Here we present a protocol for activation of postquantumness in bipartite generalized EPR scenarios such as the so-called Bob-with-input, measurement-device-independent, and channel EPR scenarios. By designing a protocol that involves distributing the assemblages in a larger network, we derive tailored Bell inequalities which can be violated beyond their quantum bound in this new setup. Our results show that in all of the above generalized scenarios, the postquantumness of the assemblages can be witnessed at the level of correlations they produce.
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering is an intermediate type of quantum nonlocality which sits between entanglement and Bell nonlocality. A set of correlations is Bell nonlocal if it does not admit a local hidden variable (LHV) model, while it is EPR nonlocal if it does not admit a local hidden variable--local hidden state (LHV-LHS) model. It is interesting to know what states can generate EPR-nonlocal correlations in the simplest nontrivial scenario, that is, two projective measurements for each party sharing a two-qubit state. Here we show that a two-qubit state can generate EPR-nonlocal full correlations (excluding marginal statistics) in this scenario if and only if it can generate Bell-nonlocal correlations. If full statistics (including marginal statistics) is taken into account, surprisingly, the same scenario can manifest the simplest one-way steering and the strongest hierarchy between steering and Bell nonlocality. To illustrate these intriguing phenomena in simple setups, several concrete examples are discussed in detail, which facilitates experimental demonstration. In the course of study, we introduce the concept of restricted LHS models and thereby derive a necessary and sufficient semidefinite-programming criterion to determine the steerability of any bipartite state under given measurements. Analytical criteria are further derived in several scenarios of strong theoretical and experimental interest.
The study of stronger-than-quantum phenomena (i.e., postquantum) has enabled a deeper understanding of the scope of quantum theory. Much is known about the case of correlations in Bell scenarios, where the device-independent framework allowed us to explore its possibilities independently of the formalism of quantum theory. However, less is known about the phenomenon of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering. Here, the `characterised parties' are assumed to describe their systems locally through the quantum formalism, which inconveniences a theory-independent description. In addition, a theorem by Gisin and Hughston, Josza and Wootters further hindered the discovery of the phenomenon. The study of postquantum steering, initiated about a decade ago, has been quite fruitful, including: the development of mathematical formalisms that frame the effect, resource theories that quantify it as a resource, and activation protocols that relate it to Bell correlations. However, all these results have a limitation in common: they apply to scenarios with only one quantum party.
Here we articulate the concept of postquantum steering for scenarios with multiple quantum parties, bringing in the missing piece to the puzzle. We provide an algorithm to certify postquantumness, which in some cases also certifies quantumness. We also define a hierarchy of semidefinite programs that bounds the set of quantum assemblages from the outside. Moreover, we show that the study of postquantum steering is fundamentally relevant since it is not just a mere mathematical curiosity allowed by the no-signalling principle, but it may arise within compositional theories beyond quantum theory. Our work further discovers a peculiarity of steering: its theory-independent description fundamentally prevents a direct connection with Bell nonlocality -- e.g., nonclassical Bell correlations do not imply nonclassical steering.
When two parties, Alice and Bob, share correlated quantum systems and Alice performs local measurements, Alice's updated description of Bob's state can provide evidence of nonclassical correlations. This simple scenario, famously introduced by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR), can be modified by allowing Bob to also have a classical or quantum system as an input. In this case, Alice updates her knowledge of the channel (rather than of a state) in Bob's lab. In this paper, we provide a unified framework for studying the nonclassicality of various such generalizations of the EPR scenario. We do so using a resource theory wherein the free operations are local operations and shared randomness (LOSR). We derive a semidefinite program for studying the pre-order of EPR resources and discover possible conversions between the latter. Moreover, we study conversions between post-quantum resources both analytically and numerically.
The problem of deciding whether a set of quantum measurements is jointly measurable is known to be equivalent to determining whether a quantum assemblage is unsteerable. This problem can be formulated as a semidefinite program (SDP). However, the number of variables and constraints in such a formulation grows exponentially with the number of measurements, rendering it intractable for large measurement sets. In this work, we circumvent this problem by transforming the SDP into a hierarchy of linear programs that compute upper and lower bounds on the incompatibility robustness with a complexity that grows polynomially in the number of measurements. The hierarchy is guaranteed to converge and it can be applied to arbitrary measurements – including non-projective POVMs (Positive Operator-Valued Measures) – in arbitrary dimensions. While convergence becomes impractical in high dimensions, in the case of qubits our method reliably provides accurate upper and lower bounds for the incompatibility robustness of sets with several hundred measurements in a short time using a standard laptop. We also apply our methods to qutrits, obtaining non-trivial upper and lower bounds in scenarios that are otherwise intractable using the standard SDP approach, although such bounds are significantly looser than the ones obtained in the qubit case. Finally, we show how our methods can be used to construct local hidden state models for states (i.e., to prove that a state cannot lead to steering under any possible local measurements), or conversely, to certify that a given state exhibits steering; for two-qubit quantum states, our approach is comparable to, and in some cases outperforms, the current best methods.