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arXiv:2603.19612

Universal method for optimized robustness in self-testing of quantum resources

Shin-Liang Chen, Nikolai Miklin

quant-phSubmitted Mar 20, 2026• Announced Mar 23, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

Self-testing is a phenomenon where the use of specific quantum states or measurements can be inferred solely from the correlations they generate. We introduce a universal method for conducting robustness analysis in the self-testing of various quantum resources. Unlike previous numerical approaches, which rely on selecting specific isometries, our method optimizes over equivalence transformations, thereby leading to tighter robustness bounds. This optimization employs the well-established technique of semidefinite programming relaxations for non-commuting polynomial optimization. Our method can be universally applied to diverse self-testing settings, including steerable assemblages in the Bell scenario, constellations of quantum states in the prepare-and-measure scenario, and entangled states in the steering scenario. We demonstrate the method's capability to surpass previously reported robustness bounds across a range of concrete examples.

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10 pages, 4 figures, comments welcome!

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Self-testing is a phenomenon where the use of specific quantum states or measurements can be inferred solely from the correlations they generate. We introduce a universal method for conducting robustness analysis in the self-testing of various quantum resources. Unlike previous numerical approaches, which rely on selecting specific isometries, our method optimizes over equivalence transformations, thereby leading to tighter robustness bounds. This optimization employs the well-established technique of semidefinite programming relaxations for non-commuting polynomial optimization. Our method can be universally applied to diverse self-testing settings, including steerable assemblages in the Bell scenario, constellations of quantum states in the prepare-and-measure scenario, and entangled states in the steering scenario. We demonstrate the method's capability to surpass previously reported robustness bounds across a range of concrete examples.
Given a Bell inequality, if its maximal quantum violation can be achieved only by a single set of measurements for each party or a single quantum state, up to local unitaries, one refers to such a phenomenon as self-testing. For instance, the maximal quantum violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality certifies that the underlying state contains the two-qubit maximally entangled state and the measurements of one party contains a pair of anti-commuting qubit observables. As a consequence, the other party automatically verifies the set of states remotely steered, namely the "assemblage", is in the eigenstates of a pair of anti-commuting observables. It is natural to ask if the quantum violation of the Bell inequality is not maximally achieved, or if one does not care about self-testing the state or measurements, are we capable of estimating how close the underlying assemblage is to the reference one? In this work, we provide a systematic device-independent estimation by proposing a framework called "robust self-testing of steerable quantum assemblages". In particular, we consider assemblages violating several paradigmatic Bell inequalities and obtain the robust self-testing statement for each scenario. Our result is device-independent (DI), i.e., no assumption is made on the shared state and the measurement devices involved. Our work thus not only paves a way for exploring the connection between the boundary of quantum set of correlations and steerable assemblages, but also provides a useful tool in the areas of DI quantum certification. As two explicit applications, we show 1) that it can be used for an alternative proof of the protocol of DI certification of all entangled two-qubit states proposed by Bowles et al., and 2) that it can be used to verify all non-entanglement-breaking qubit channels with fewer assumptions compared with the work of Rosset et al.
Abstract Robust self-testing provides a framework for certifying quantum resources under experimental imperfections. Improving robustness bounds for quantum resources such as quantum states, steering assemblages, and measurements is a constant effort that ensures relevance in the experimental realm. Despite progress in analytic self-testing methods for quantum states and measurements, extending these techniques to device-independent certification of steering assemblages has remained an open challenge, with previous work relying primarily on numerical approaches. We address this gap by developing operator inequalities for robust self-testing of quantum steering assemblages. Specifically, we consider the assemblage that achieves maximal violation of the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt inequality and obtain explicit lower bounds on its certification fidelity. Our analytic approach yields results that significantly improve upon previous numerical bounds, representing the first analytic treatment of device-independent assemblage self-testing. This work demonstrates a new application of operator inequalities beyond quantum state certification and contributes to the foundational understanding of device-independent certification in steering scenarios, potentially guiding future theoretical and experimental developments.
The goal of self-testing is to characterize an a priori unknown quantum system based solely on measurement statistics, i.e., using an uncharacterized measurement device. Here we develop self-testing methods for quantum prepare-and-measure experiments, thus not necessarily relying on entanglement and/or violation of a Bell inequality. We present noise-robust techniques for self-testing sets of quantum states and measurements, assuming an upper bound on the Hilbert space dimension. We discuss in detail the case of a $2\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1$ random access code with qubits, for which we provide analytically optimal self-tests. The simplicity and noise robustness of our methods should make them directly applicable to experiments.
Self-testing refers to the fact that, in some quantum devices, both states and measurements can be assessed in a black-box scenario, on the sole basis of the observed statistics, i.e., without reference to any prior device calibration. Only a few examples of self-testing are known, and they just provide nontrivial assessment for devices performing unrealistically close to the ideal case. We overcome these difficulties by approaching self-testing with the semidefinite programing hierarchy for the characterization of quantum correlations. This allows us to improve dramatically the robustness of previous self-testing schemes; e.g., we show that a Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt violation larger than 2.57 certifies a singlet fidelity of more than 70%. In addition, the versatility of the tool brings about self-testing of hitherto impossible cases, such as the robust self-testing of nonmaximally entangled two-qutrit states in the Collins-Gisin-Linden-Massar-Popescu scenario.
Entangled two-qubit states are the core building blocks for constructing quantum communication networks. Their accurate verification is crucial to the functioning of the networks, especially for untrusted networks. In this work we study the self-testing of two-qubit entangled states via steering inequalities, with robustness analysis against noise. More precisely, steering inequalities are constructed from the tilted Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality and its general form, to verify the general two-qubit entangled states. The study provides a good robustness bound, using both local extraction map and numerical semidefinite-programming methods. In particular, optimal local extraction maps are constructed in the analytical method, which yields the theoretical optimal robustness bound. To further improve the robustness of one-sided self-testing, we propose a family of three measurement settings steering inequalities. The result shows that three-setting steering inequality demonstrates an advantage over two-setting steering inequality on robust self-testing with noise. Moreover, to construct a practical verification protocol, we clarify the sample efficiency of our protocols in the one-sided device-independent scenario.