The completeness of quantum mechanics in predictive power is a central question in its foundational study. While most investigations focus on two-dimensional systems, high-dimensional systems are more general and widely applicable. Building on the non-extensibility theorem by Colbeck and Renner [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 050403 (2008)], which established that no higher theory can enhance the predictive power of quantum mechanics for two-dimensional systems, we extend this result to arbitrarily dimensional systems. We connect maximum potential predictive power achievable by any alternative theory to experimentally observable correlations, and establish optimal experimental bounds across varying dimensions by exploiting two-photon orbital angular momentum entangled states with entanglement concentration. These bounds falsify a broader class of alternative theories, including Bell's and Leggett's models, and those that remain theoretically ambiguous or experimentally unverified. Our findings not only deepen the foundational understanding of quantum mechanics but also hold significant potential for high-dimensional quantum cryptography.
The completeness of quantum mechanics in predictive power is a central question in its foundational study. While most investigations focus on two-dimensional systems, high-dimensional systems are more general and widely applicable. Building on the non-extensibility theorem by Colbeck and Renner [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 050403 (2008)], which established that no higher theory can enhance the predictive power of quantum mechanics for two-dimensional systems, we extend this result to arbitrarily dimensional systems. We connect maximum potential predictive power achievable by any alternative theory to experimentally observable correlations, and establish optimal experimental bounds across varying dimensions by exploiting two-photon orbital angular momentum entangled states with entanglement concentration. These bounds falsify a broader class of alternative theories, including Bell's and Leggett's models, and those that remain theoretically ambiguous or experimentally unverified. Our findings not only deepen the foundational understanding of quantum mechanics but also hold significant potential for high-dimensional quantum cryptography.
Whether quantum mechanics is predictively complete remains a fundamental question in its foundations. While most investigations have concentrated on two-dimensional systems, high-dimensional systems are more general and hold broader applicability. Extending the non-extensibility theorem by Colbeck and Renner [Nat. Commun.2, 411 (2011)10.1038/ncomms1416], we demonstrate that no alternative theory can enhance the predictive power of quantum mechanics in arbitrary dimensions. By linking the maximal predictive power achievable to experimentally observable correlations, we establish optimal experimental bounds exploiting orbital angular momentum entangled photon pairs. These results impose strict constraints and rule out a broad class of hidden-variable models, including Bell-type and Leggett-type theories, thereby reinforcing the completeness of quantum theory and advancing high-dimensional quantum cryptography.
Characterizing high-dimensional entangled states is of crucial importance in quantum information science and technology. Recent theoretical progress has been made to extend Hardy's paradox into a general scenario with multisetting and multidimensional systems, which enables the maximum probability of nonlocal events to surpass the bound that was limited in Hardy's original test. Hitherto, no experimental verification has been conducted to verify Hardy's paradox, as most of the previous experimental efforts were restricted to two-dimensional systems. Here, based on two-photon high-dimensional orbital angular momentum (OAM) entanglement, we report an experiment to demonstrate Hardy's paradox for multiple settings and multiple outcomes. We demonstrate the paradox for two-setting higher-dimensional OAM subspaces up to d=7, which reveals that the nonlocal events increase with dimension. Furthermore, we showcase the nonlocality with an experimentally recorded probability of 36.77% for a five-setting three-dimensional OAM subspace via entanglement concentration, thus showing a sharper contradiction between quantum mechanics and classical theory.
Orbital angular momentum (OAM) is one of the most recently discovered properties of light, and it is only in the past decade its quantum properties have been the subject of experimental investigations and have found applications. Unlike polarization, which is only bidimensional, orbital angular momentum provides, with relative ease, unprecedented access to a theoretically unbounded discrete state space. The process of spontaneous parametric down-conversion has long been used as a source of two-photon states that can be entangled in several degrees of freedom, including OAM. In this thesis, the properties of the natural OAM spectrum associated with the entangled states produced by parametric down-conversion were investigated. Chapters 2 and 3 describe the production and detection of tunable high-dimensional OAM entanglement in a down-conversion system. By tuning the phase-matching conditions and improving the detection stage, a substantial increase in the half-width of the OAM correlation spectrum was observed. The conjugate variable of OAM, angular position, was also considered when examining high-dimensional states entangled in OAM. In order to efficiently determine their dimension, high-dimensional entangled states were probed by implementing a technique based on phase masks composed of multiple angular sectors, as opposed to narrow single-sector analysers. Presented in chapter 4, this technique allows the measurements of tight angular correlations while maintaining high optical throughput. The states so produced were then used for a number of applications centred around the concept of mutually unbiased bases. One can define sets of mutually unbiased bases for arbitrary subspaces of the OAM state space. Two bases are mutually unbiased if the measurement of a state in one basis provides no information about the state as described in the other basis. Complete measurements in mutually unbiased bases of high-dimensional OAM spaces are presented in chapter 5. Measurements in sets of mutually unbiased bases are integral to quantum science and can be used in a variety of protocols that fully exploit the large size of the OAM state space; we describe their use in efficient quantum state tomography, quantum key distribution and entanglement detection. Caution is however necessary when dealing with state spaces embedded in higher-dimensional spaces, such as that provided by OAM. Experimental tests of Bell-type inequalities allow us to rule out local hidden variable theories in the description of quantum correlations. Correlations inconsistent with the states observed, or even with quantum mechanics, known as super-quantum correlations, have however been recorded previously in experiments that fail to comply with the fair-sampling conditions. Chapter 6 describes an experiment that uses a particular choice of transverse spatial modes for which super-quantum correlations persist even if the detection is made perfectly efficient. The sets of modes carrying OAM allow a complete description of the transverse field. The ability to control and combine additional degrees of freedom provides the possibility for richer varieties of entanglement and can make quantum protocols more powerful and versatile. One such property of light, associated with transverse modes possessing radial nodes in the field distribution, can be accessed within the same type of experimental apparatus used for OAM. In chapter 7, the radial degree of freedom is explored, together with OAM, in the context of Hong-Ou-Mandel interference.
Orbital angular momentum entangled photons emitted by a down-conversion source are shown to be in higher dimensional entangled states. This is experimentally confirmed by demonstrating a violation of Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt-type Bell inequalities. The experiment is performed in two steps. First, the two-photon two-dimensional entanglement is demonstrated for orbital angular momentum states by violating the usual CHSH Bell inequality. In a second step the setup is extended in order to show that the entanglement also holds in three dimensions. By using a generalized type of the CHSH Bell inequality, a violation of more than 18 standard deviations is achieved. Higher dimensional entangled states thus allow the realization of new types of quantum communication protocols. They also provide a more secure quantum cryptography scheme.
Leggett inequality states that nonlocal hidden-variable models might still be incompatible with the predictions of quantum physics. However, its theoretical and experimental demonstration is only in the scenario of 2-dimensional maximally entangled systems. An open question remains as to whether the Leggett inequality can be violated by nonmaximally entangled states. Here, we answer this question both in theory and experiment. Specifically, from the point of view of geometry, we theoretically map the problem of maximizing the correlation measure in the Leggett inequality to maximizing the sum of an ellipse’s diameter and semi-diameter axes, accordingly, demonstrating that the violation of the Leggett inequality requires a more robust entanglement than that of Bell’s theory. Experimentally, by leveraging the controllable photonic orbital angular momentum entanglement, we demonstrate the violation of Leggett-type inequalities by more than 8.7 and 4.5 standard deviations under concurrence C = 0.95 and 0.9, respectively. Our observations indicate that, the requirement for quantum correlation should be increased to exclude a particular class of non-local hidden variable theories that abide by Leggett’s model, providing insights into the boundaries of quantum correlation and the limitations imposed by non-local hidden variables.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: High-dimensional quantum entanglement offers an increase in information capacity per photon; a highly desirable property for quantum information processes such as quantum communication, computation and teleportation. As the orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes of light span an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space, they have become frontrunners in achieving entanglement in higher dimensions. In light of this, we investigate the potential of OAM entanglement of photons by controlling the parameters in both the generation and measurement systems. We show the experimental procedures and apparatus involved in generating and measuring entangled photons in two-dimensions. We verify important quantum tests such as the Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR) paradox using OAM and angle correlations, as well as a violation of a Bell-type inequality. By performing a full state tomography, we characterise our quantum state and show we have a pure, highly entangled quantum state. We demonstrate that this method can be extended to higher dimensions. The experimental techniques used to generate and measure OAM entanglement place an upper bound on the number of accessible OAM modes. As such, we investigate new methods in which to increase the spiral bandwidth of our generated quantum state. We alter the shape of the pump beam in spontaneous parametric down-conversion and demonstrate an effect on both OAM and angle correlations. We also made changes to the measurement scheme by projecting the photon pairs into the Bessel-Gaussian (BG) basis and demonstrate entanglement in this basis. We show that this method allows the measured spiral bandwidth to be optimised by simply varying the continuous radial parameter of the BG modes. We demonstrate that BG modes can be entangled in higher dimensions compared with the commonly used helical modes by calculating and comparing the linear entropy and fidelity for both modes. We also show that quantum entanglement can be accurately simulated using classical light using back-projection, which allows the study of projective measurements and predicts the strength of the coincidence correlations in an entanglement experiment. Finally, we make use of each of the techniques to demonstrate the effect of a perturbation on OAM entanglement measured in the BG basis. We investigate the self-healing property of BG beams and show that the classical property is translated to the quantum regime. By calculating the concurrence, we see that measured entanglement recovers after encountering an obstruction.