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.
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.
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering is often (implicitly or explicitly) taken to be evidence for spooky action-at-a-distance. An alternative perspective on steering is that Alice has no causal influence on the physical state of Bob's system; rather, Alice merely updates her knowledge of the state of Bob's system by performing a measurement on a system correlated with his. In this work, we elaborate on this perspective (from which the very term 'steering' is seen to be inappropriate), and we are led to a resource-theoretic treatment of correlations in EPR scenarios. For both bipartite and multipartite scenarios, we develop the resulting resource theory, wherein the free operations are local operations and shared randomness (LOSR). We show that resource conversion under free operations in this paradigm can be evaluated with a single instance of a semidefinite program, making the problem numerically tractable. Moreover, we find that the structure of the pre-order of resources features interesting properties, such as infinite families of incomparable resources. In showing this, we derive new EPR resource monotones. We also discuss advantages of our approach over a pre-existing proposal for a resource theory of 'steering', and discuss how our approach sheds light on basic questions, such as which multipartite assemblages are classically explainable.
In space-like separated experiments and other scenarios where multiple parties share a classical common cause but no cause-effect relations, quantum theory allows a variety of nonsignaling resources which are useful for distributed quantum information processing. These include quantum states, nonlocal boxes, steering assemblages, teleportages, channel steering assemblages, and so on. Such resources are often studied using nonlocal games, semiquantum games, entanglement-witnesses, teleportation experiments, and similar tasks. We introduce a unifying framework which subsumes the full range of nonsignaling resources, as well as the games and experiments which probe them, into a common resource theory: that of local operations and shared randomness (LOSR). Crucially, we allow these LOSR operations to locally change the type of a resource, so that players can convert resources of any type into resources of any other type, and in particular into strategies for the specific type of game they are playing. We then prove several theorems relating resources and games of different types. These theorems generalize a number of seminal results from the literature, and can be applied to lessen the assumptions needed to characterize the nonclassicality of resources. As just one example, we prove that semiquantum games are able to perfectly characterize the LOSR nonclassicality of every resource of any type (not just quantum states, as was previously shown). As a consequence, we show that any resource can be characterized in a measurement-device-independent manner.
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.
A standard approach to quantifying resources is to determine which operations on the resources are freely available, and to deduce the partial order over resources that is induced by the relation of convertibility under the free operations. If the resource of interest is the nonclassicality of the correlations embodied in a quantum state, i.e., e n t a n g l e m e n t , then the common assumption is that the appropriate choice of free operations is Local Operations and Classical Communication (LOCC). We here advocate for the study of a different choice of free operations, namely, Local Operations and Shared Randomness (LOSR), and demonstrate its utility in understanding the interplay between the entanglement of states and the nonlocality of the correlations in Bell experiments. Specifically, we show that the LOSR paradigm (i) provides a resolution of the anomalies of nonlocality , wherein partially entangled states exhibit more nonlocality than maximally entangled states, (ii) entails new notions of genuine multipartite entanglement and nonlocality that are free of the pathological features of the conventional notions, and (iii) makes possible a resource-theoretic account of the self-testing of entangled states which generalizes and simplifies prior results. Along the way, we derive some fundamental results concerning the necessary and sufficient conditions for convertibility between pure entangled states under LOSR and highlight some of their consequences, such as the impossibility of catalysis for bipartite pure states. The resource-theoretic perspective also clarifies why it is neither surprising nor problematic that there are mixed entangled states which do not violate any Bell inequality. Our results motivate the study of LOSR-entanglement as a new branch of entanglement theory.
We take a resource-theoretic approach to the problem of quantifying nonclassicality in Bell scenarios. The resources are conceptualized as probabilistic processes from the setting variables to the outcome variables having a particular causal structure, namely, one wherein the wings are only connected by a common cause. We term them common-cause boxes. We define the distinction between classical and nonclassical resources in terms of whether or not a classical causal model can explain the correlations. One can then quantify the relative nonclassicality of resources by considering their interconvertibility relative to the set of operations that can be implemented using a classical common cause (which correspond to local operations and shared randomness). We prove that the set of free operations forms a polytope, which in turn allows us to derive an efficient algorithm for deciding whether one resource can be converted to another. We moreover define two distinct monotones with simple closed-form expressions in the two-party binary-setting binary-outcome scenario, and use these to reveal various properties of the pre-order of resources, including a lower bound on the cardinality of any complete set of monotones. In particular, we show that the information contained in the degrees of violation of facet-defining Bell inequalities is not sufficient for quantifying nonclassicality, even though it is sufficient for witnessing nonclassicality. Finally, we show that the continuous set of convexly extremal quantumly realizable correlations are all at the top of the pre-order of quantumly realizable correlations. In addition to providing new insights on Bell nonclassicality, our work also sets the stage for quantifying nonclassicality in more general causal networks.
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.