The $2\times3$ magic rectangle is a nonlocal game in which two players match entries subject to incompatible parity constraints. Its quantum value was suggested by numerical bounds and known quantum random access codes. We prove that this value is $(1+\sqrt{2/3})/2$ and classify all optimal strategies in arbitrary finite local dimensions, allowing general measurements: up to local isometries and ancillary systems, each contains a maximally entangled pair of four-dimensional systems with fixed measurements on the local state supports. The same value holds for commuting-operator strategies and for the almost-quantum relaxation, confirming the Adamson--Wallden conjecture for this rectangle. For finite-dimensional magic-square strategies, the largest score compatible with perfect prediction of Alice's complete first row by an adversary with quantum side information is one third plus two thirds of the rectangle value. We classify the strategies attaining this threshold with perfect prediction and give linear-order upper and lower bounds on one minus the best compatible guessing probability above it. The rectangle value is also the optimal average success probability of finite-dimensional three-bit random access codes that hide the full input parity, and we classify all optimal codes.
Exact value and rigidity of the 2×3 magic rectangle
The 2×3 magic rectangle is a nonlocal game in which two players match entries subject to incompatible parity constraints. Its quantum value was suggested by numerical bounds and known quantum random access codes. We prove that this value is (1+2/3)/2 and classify all optimal strategies in arbitrary finite local dimensions, allowing general measurements: up to local isometries and ancillary systems, each contains a maximally entangled pair of four-dimensional systems with fixed measurements on the local state supports. The same value holds for commuting-operator strategies and for the almost-quantum relaxation, confirming the Adamson--Wallden conjecture for this rectangle. For finite-dimensional magic-square strategies, the largest score compatible with perfect prediction of Alice's complete first row by an adversary with quantum side information is one third plus two thirds of the rectangle value. We classify the strategies attaining this threshold with perfect prediction and give linear-order upper and lower bounds on one minus the best compatible guessing probability above it. The rectangle value is also the optimal average success probability of finite-dimensional three-bit random access codes that hide the full input parity, and we classify all optimal codes.
How much entanglement does near-optimal play of a two-player nonlocal game require? We give an explicit binary linear system game, with 1687 equations in 1993 variables and at most three variables in each equation, whose quantum value is one, and in which every strategy that wins with probability 1−ε needs entanglement entropy ε−1+o(1), hence local dimension exp(ε−1+o(1)). The same bound holds for the entanglement of formation of mixed strategies, and a strategy on a maximally entangled state of local dimension exp(Cε−1log(1/ε)) suffices, so the exponent is sharp. For explicit two-player games of quantum value one, the best previous lower bound was polynomial in 1/ε. The game comes from a finitely generated, elementary amenable group: a lamplighter whose lamps are Pauli pairs indexed by finite sets of points on the three rays on which Houghton's group acts. Exponentially many of these pairs share one central involution, yet the relation that any two of them commute can be derived from a fixed finite set of relations in a number of steps only quasi-polynomial in the number of points. Two tools may be of independent use. The first counts qubits from approximate Pauli relations measured in an arbitrary state, with the errors of different pairs adding in squares. The second identifies, in both directions and at the natural precision ε, the near-optimal strategies of a linear system game with approximate representations of its solution group measured in the players' actual state, so that no power of ε is lost by passing to a flat state. The same tools give sharp rates for two earlier examples: the CHSH(n) games need Θ(min(n,1/ε)) ebits, and the linear system game of Slofstra and Vidick needs local dimension Θ(ε−1/2).
We construct a finite rational two-player nonlocal game with ten Alice questions, eleven Bob questions, at most six answers per question and 52 equally likely supported pairs. It has a perfect spatial strategy and no perfect finite-dimensional strategy. For arbitrary finite-dimensional local POVMs and mixed states, its dimension profile is D_Gamma(epsilon) = 10 log2(1/epsilon) + O(log log(1/epsilon)). The lower bound is 10 log2(1/epsilon) - 10 log2 log2(1/epsilon) - O(1). A direct square-root magic-square extraction, robust flagged sector law and approximate gluing force twenty Schmidt coefficients per appreciable halving level. The explicit strategy compressed to 20K dimensions has loss exactly 1/[624(4^K-1)], yielding the matching leading upper coefficient 10.
We provide a complete structural characterization of perfect quantum strategies for arbitrary quantum magic rectangle games. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions that jointly constrain the shared state and measurement operators, establishing a unified analytical framework for perfect nonlocal strategies in this setting. Our results show that all perfect quantum solution states (PQSS) must exhibit a specific algebraic--combinatorial structure, ruling out a priori assumptions about particular entangled resources and clarifying the full class of states compatible with perfect correlations. We further show that perfect quantum strategies do not exist for 2×n quantum magic rectangle games with odd n, and introduce a corresponding quantum magic rectangle inequality to characterize optimal non-perfect strategies. While our results are structural, they may provide a foundation for future developments in quantum information and quantum cryptography based on perfect nonlocal correlations.
In a nonlocal game of quantum value one that no finite-dimensional strategy wins, near-perfect play needs growing dimension, which separable states can have. We ask how much usable entanglement it needs: the demand at loss ε is the least one-way distillable entanglement of the original state of a strategy of loss at most ε. For synchronous games with tested diagonals and for constraint-variable consistency games, demand diverges exactly when no finite-dimensional strategy is perfect; then, for any number of Bell pairs and any fidelity below one, every sufficiently good mixed strategy yields that many at that fidelity by local isometries. For rational synchronous or binary constraint games, a loss guaranteeing this is computable under a promise, but boundedness of demand is undecidable among games of value one. Demand is at least logarithmic if near-winners have a sign relation and an even dilation mirrored by both players, as in a game from Abels' group. For agreement games the directions agree up to a factor three in loss, optimal among Bob-fixed deterministic local symmetrizations. The geometry of the group behind a game, not its presentation, sets the rates. Fixed games demand αlog(1/ε) for every α=21∑ilogmiqi with qi≥2 a power of two dividing mi, a dense set containing all positive rationals and some transcendentals, such as 21log62; a configuration-lamp game demands ε−1+o(1); Pauli lamps on the points of Houghton's three rays give demand between ε−0.0690 and ε−1/4. If group relations hold exactly and Alice matches Bob to error e, demand counts qubits addressable by short words: Θ(1/e), Θ(e−k) for integers k≥1, or 2Θ(1/e). Conditional on our attainment and tail bounds, the I3322 optimum needs bounded usable entanglement.
Prior to this work, the largest known gap between the entangled value and the classical value for a one-round two-player nonlocal game with a perfect entangled strategy using two Bell states of entanglement was 91, achieved by the Mermin-Peres magic square game. A larger gap of 152 has been claimed for the related doily game of Kelleher, Roomy, and Holweck (Quant. Inf. Proc., 2024). However, this value assumes that the classical players use identical local strategies, and we show that dropping this assumption reduces the gap back to 91. We then demonstrate that 91 is not optimal by explicitly constructing a new nonlocal game with gap 354.
We identify a structural mechanism by which perfect play in a nonlocal game requires and self-tests a specific non-maximally entangled state. To this end, we construct a Flagged Magic-Square game by extending the standard Magic-Square game with an additional ``flag'' outcome and two additional questions for each player. The game admits a perfect strategy using a state with Schmidt coefficients proportional to (1,2,2,2,2). We give a direct algebraic proof that maximally entangled strategies have winning probability bounded away from one, independently of dimension. Moreover, the game self-tests this state, providing an example of a two-party pseudo-telepathy game that certifies a specific non-maximally entangled state. Our construction illustrates how adding suitable constraints to a rigid measurement geometry can enforce specific Schmidt ratios and provides a modular route to further self-tests based on other rigid pseudo-telepathy games.
We establish a general game-to-channel reduction that transfers separations in the game model to one-shot zero-error communication over classical channels. Applied to the Flagged Magic-Square game, it yields a classical channel for which entanglement permits the zero-error transmission of ten messages in a single use, whereas any finite-dimensional maximally entangled resource permits at most nine. Thus, maximally entangled states are not a universally optimal entanglement resource for zero-error communication over classical noisy channels.