While quantum networks have been extensively studied as a natural extension of the standard Bell scenario with a richer correlation structure, general constructions of nonlinear Bell inequalities with self-testing properties are still largely lacking. In this work, we present a general method for constructing such inequalities in the simplest network scenario, in which two independent sources distribute bipartite quantum states to three spatially separated observers. These inequalities allow for arbitrary numbers of binary measurements and are maximally violated by maximally entangled states of the corresponding local dimensions together with sets of pairwise anticommuting Clifford observables. Importantly, their maximal quantum values can be determined analytically, which makes them particularly promising for device-independent applications. In particular, we prove that these Bell inequalities can be used to device-independently certify the underlying quantum network, including both the quantum states produced by the sources and the observables measured by all parties. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first self-testing result for quantum networks that relies solely on the maximal violation of a nonlocality witness.
While quantum networks have been extensively studied as a natural extension of the standard Bell scenario with a richer correlation structure, general constructions of nonlinear Bell inequalities with self-testing properties are still largely lacking. In this work, we present a general method for constructing such inequalities in the simplest network scenario, in which two independent sources distribute bipartite quantum states to three spatially separated observers. These inequalities allow for arbitrary numbers of binary measurements and are maximally violated by maximally entangled states of the corresponding local dimensions together with sets of pairwise anticommuting Clifford observables. Importantly, their maximal quantum values can be determined analytically, which makes them particularly promising for device-independent applications. In particular, we prove that these Bell inequalities can be used to device-independently certify the underlying quantum network, including both the quantum states produced by the sources and the observables measured by all parties. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first self-testing result for quantum networks that relies solely on the maximal violation of a nonlocality witness.
Bell inequalities provide a fundamental tool for probing nonlocal correlations, yet their quantum bound, that is, the maximal value attainable through quantum strategies, is rarely accessible analytically. In this work, we introduce a general construction of Bell inequalities for which this bound can be computed exactly. Our framework generalizes both the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt and Gisin's elegant inequalities, yielding Bell expressions maximally violated by any number of pairwise anticommuting Clifford observables together with the corresponding maximally entangled state. Under suitable assumptions, our inequalities also enable the device-independent certification of Majorana fermions, understood as multiqubit realizations of Clifford algebra generators. Importantly, we identify an additional equivalence that must be incorporated into the definition of self-testing beyond invariance under local isometries and transposition. This equivalence arises from partial transposition applied to the shared state and to the measurements, which in specific cases leaves all observed correlations unchanged.
Bell inequalities are an important tool in device-independent quantum information processing because their violation can serve as a certificate of relevant quantum properties. Probably the best known example of a Bell inequality is due to Clauser, Horne, Shimony and Holt (CHSH), which is defined in the simplest scenario involving two dichotomic measurements and whose all key properties are well understood. There have been many attempts to generalise the CHSH Bell inequality to higher-dimensional quantum systems, however, for most of them the maximal quantum violation---the key quantity for most device-independent applications---remains unknown. On the other hand, the constructions for which the maximal quantum violation can be computed, do not preserve the natural property of the CHSH inequality, namely, that the maximal quantum violation is achieved by the maximally entangled state and measurements corresponding to mutually unbiased bases. In this work we propose a novel family of Bell inequalities which exhibit precisely these properties, and whose maximal quantum violation can be computed analytically. In the simplest scenario it recovers the CHSH Bell inequality. These inequalities involve d measurements settings, each having d outcomes for an arbitrary prime number d ≥ 3 . We then show that in the three-outcome case our Bell inequality can be used to self-test the maximally entangled state of two-qutrits and three mutually unbiased bases at each site. Yet, we demonstrate that in the case of more outcomes, their maximal violation does not allow for self-testing in the standard sense, which motivates the definition of a new weak form of self-testing. The ability to certify high-dimensional MUBs makes these inequalities attractive from the device-independent cryptography point of view.
Abstract Bell inequalities provide a fundamental tool for probing nonlocal correlations, yet their quantum bound, that is, the maximal value attainable by quantum strategies, is rarely accessible analytically. In this work, we introduce a general construction of Bell inequalities for which this bound can be computed exactly. The construction is based on a class of rectangular matrices with pairwise orthogonal rows and normalized columns, which we call row-orthogonal, column-normalized (ROCN) matrices. Our framework generalizes both the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt inequality and Gisin’s elegant Bell inequality, yielding Bell expressions maximally violated by arbitrary families of pairwise anticommuting Clifford observables together with the corresponding maximally entangled state. Under suitable assumptions, these inequalities also enable the device-independent certification of Majorana fermions, understood as multiqubit realizations of Clifford algebra generators. Importantly, we identify an additional equivalence that must be incorporated into self-testing, beyond the standard equivalences generated by local isometries, the addition of auxiliary degrees of freedom, and complex conjugation. This equivalence arises from applying partial transposition jointly to the shared state and the measurements, which, whenever it is well-defined, preserves all observed correlations.
Bell's theorem shows that quantum theory is incompatible with local hidden-variable models. In recent years, research on nonlocality has moved beyond Bell's original scenario to quantum networks, where multiple independent sources distribute physical systems among distant parties, giving rise to correlations certified by nonlinear rather than standard Bell inequalities. Here, we introduce a self-guided protocol that variationally optimizes each party's measurement to maximize the violation of a network Bell inequality, with the violation evaluated efficiently at each step via local Pauli classical shadows and the search driven by the Complex Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Approximation (CSPSA) algorithm. Once converged, the measurement settings it returns are implemented directly and the inequality is re-evaluated without shadows. This two-stage structure separates a device-dependent search from a certificate that depends only on the observed statistics and on the causal structure of the network. We validate the protocol by numerically simulating it on the triangle network using the Wagon-Wheel inequality, recovering the violation achieved by the Fritz distribution, and extending the certification to non-maximally entangled and noisy states.
Source-independent quantum networks are considered as a natural generalization to the Bell scenario where we investigate the nonlocal properties of quantum states distributed and measured in a network. Considering the simplest network of entanglement swapping, recently Gisin et al. [Phys. Rev. A 96, 020304(R) (2017)] and Andreoli [New. J. Phys. 19, 113020 (2017)] independently provided a systematic characterization of the set of quantum states leading to violation of the so-called bilocality inequality. In this work, we consider the complexities in quantum networks with an arbitrary number of parties distributed in chain-shaped and star-shaped networks. We derive the maximal violation of the ``n-local'' inequality that can be achieved by arbitrary two-qubit states for such chain- and star-shaped networks. This would further provide a deeper understanding of quantum correlations in complex structures.
The next frontier in device-independent quantum information lies in the certification of scalable and parallel quantum resources, which underpin advanced quantum technologies. We put forth a simultaneous self-testing framework for maximally entangled two-qudit state of local dimension m∗=2⌊n/2⌋ (equivalently ⌊n/2⌋ copies of maximally entangled two-qubit pairs), together with n numbers of anti-commuting observables on one side. To this end, we employ an n-settings Bell inequality comprising two space-like separated observers, Alice and Bob, having 2n−1 and n number of measurement settings, respectively. We derive the local ontic bound of this inequality and, crucially, employ the Sum-of-Squares decomposition to determine the optimal quantum bound without presupposing the dimension of the state or observables. We then establish that any physical realisation achieving the maximal quantum violation must, up to local isometries and complex conjugation, correspond to a reference strategy consisting of a maximally entangled state of local dimension of at least 2⌊n/2⌋ and local observables forming an irreducible representation of the Clifford algebra. This construction thereby demonstrates that the minimal dimension compatible with n mutually anticommuting observables is naturally self-tested by the maximal violation of the proposed Bell functional. Finally, we analyse the robustness of the protocol by establishing quantitative bounds relating deviations in the observed Bell value to the fidelity between the realised and the ideal strategies. Our results thus provide a scalable, dimension-independent route for the certification of high-dimensional entanglement and Clifford measurements in a fully device-independent framework.