An evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) was originally defined as a static concept but later given a dynamic characterization. A well known theorem in evolutionary game theory says that an ESS is an attractor of replicator dynamics but not every attractor is an ESS. We search for a dynamic characterization of ESSs in quantum games and find that in certain asymmetric bi-matrix games evolutionary stability of attractors can change as the game switches between its two forms, one classical and the other quantum.
An evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) is a strategy that, once adopted by a population, cannot be invaded by any sufficiently rare alternative (mutant) strategy. We analyse evolutionary stability in an Eisert--Wilkens--Lewenstein (EWL) quantization of a symmetric
2×2 coordination game, whose classical mixed equilibrium
p∗=1/2 is not an ESS. In the restricted two-parameter EWL strategy space, the corresponding quantum strategy is a strict symmetric Nash equilibrium and an ESS for every entanglement strength
γ>0. In the full
SU(2) strategy space it remains a Nash equilibrium, but in the unreduced game, in which every unitary is a distinct strategy, exact payoff duplicates preclude strictness and ESS for every pure strategy. For the agreement-payoff class, the payoff factors through a Bloch map; identifying payoff-equivalent unitaries gives the reduced space
U(1)\SU(2)≅S2, where strictness and ESS are restored for
γ>0. An arbitrarily small perturbation outside this class that preserves
p∗=1/2 yields a profitable deviation, so the reduced-space result is not generic.
Theory of quantum games is a new area of investigation that has gone through rapid development during the last few years. Initial motivation for playing games, in the quantum world, comes from the possibility of re-formulating quantum communication protocols, and algorithms, in terms of games between quantum and classical players. The possibility led to the view that quantum games have a potential to provide helpful insight into working of quantum algorithms, and even in finding new ones. This thesis analyzes and compares some interesting games when played classically and quantum mechanically. A large part of the thesis concerns investigations into a refinement notion of the Nash equilibrium concept. The refinement, called an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS), was originally introduced in 1970s by mathematical biologists to model an evolving population using techniques borrowed from game theory. Analysis is developed around a situation when quantization changes ESSs without affecting corresponding Nash equilibria. Effects of quantization on solution-concepts other than Nash equilibrium are presented and discussed. For this purpose the notions of value of coalition, backwards-induction outcome, and subgame-perfect outcome are selected. Repeated games are known to have different information structure than one-shot games. Investigation is presented into a possible way where quantization changes the outcome of a repeated game. Lastly, two new suggestions are put forward to play quantum versions of classical matrix games. The first one uses the association of De Broglie's waves, with travelling material objects, as a resource for playing a quantum game. The second suggestion concerns an EPR type setting exploiting directly the correlations in Bell's inequalities to play a bi-matrix game.
We quantize the Hawk–Dove game by using the most general form of a pure initial state to investigate the existence of pure and mixed evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS). An example is considered to draw a comparison between the classical and quantum version of the game. Our choice of the most general initial quantum state enables us to make the game symmetric or asymmetric. We show that for a particular set of game parameters where there exists only mixed ESS in the classical version of the game, quantization allows even a pure strategy to be an ESS for the symmetric game in addition to mixed ESS. On the other hand only pure strategy ESS can exist for the asymmetric quantum version of the Hawk–Dove game.
A quantum game in the Eisert scheme is defined by the payoff matrix, plus some quantum entanglement parameters. In the symmetric nonzero-sum 2x2 games, the relevant features of the game are given by two parameters in the payoff matrix, and only one extra entanglement parameter is introduced by quantizing it in the Eisert scheme. The criteria adopted in this work to classify quantum games are the amount and characteristics of Nash equilibria and Pareto-optimal positions. A new classification based on them is developed for symmetric nonzero-sum classical 2x2 games, as well as classifications for quantum games with different restricted subsets of the total strategy set. Finally, a classification is presented taking the whole set of strategies into account, both unitary strategies and nonunitary strategies studied as convex mixures of unitary strategies. The classification reproduces features which have been previously found in other works, like appearance of multiple equilibria, changes in the character of equilibria, and entanglement regime transitions.