No-go theorems for quantum information theory and computational logic for variable lenght quantum registers

Kapil K. Sharma, Vladimir P. Gerdt, Pyotr V. Gerdt

Doriano Brogioli

The celebrated Bell's no-go theorem rules out the hidden-variable theories falling in the hypothesis of locality and causality, by requiring the theory to model the quantum correlation-at-a-distance phenomena. Here I develop an independent no-go theorem, by inspecting the ability of a theory to model quantum \emph{circuits}. If a theory is compatible with quantum mechanics, then the problems of solving its mathematical models must be as hard as calculating the output of quantum circuits, i.e., as hard as quantum computing. Rigorously, I provide complexity classes capturing the idea of sampling from sequential (causal) theories and from post-selection-based (retro-causal) theories; I show that these classes fail to cover the computational complexity of sampling from quantum circuits. The result is based on widely accepted conjectures on the superiority of quantum computers over classical ones. The result represents a no-go theorem that rules out a large family of sequential and post-selection-based theories. I discuss the hypothesis of the no-go theorem and the possible ways to circumvent them. In particular, I discuss the Schulman model and its extensions, which is retro-causal and is able to model quantum correlation-at-a-distance phenomena: I provides clues suggesting that it escapes the hypothesis of the no-go theorem.

Philip Bechtle, Cedric Breuning, Herbi K. Dreiner +1 more

It has been argued more than 30 years ago that it is not possible to test locality at colliders, due to the inability to directly measure non-commutating observables such as spin components in current collider experiments. Recently, there has been a lot of phenomenological and experimental activity around testing locality via Bell-type experiments or entanglement versus non-entanglement in a collider environment. These results seem to evade the earlier no-go theorem by indirectly measuring spin correlations via their relation to angular correlations between momenta. We perform a careful study of the feasibility of such an approach. We scrutinize the relationship between spin and angular correlations in both quantum mechanics and local hidden variable theories. Our conclusion is that it is currently not possible to perform a logically coherent set of experimental measurements at colliders that would allow one to test locality or entanglement versus non-entanglement. This reaffirms the earlier no-go theorem. We stress that the no-go theorem does not apply to measurements of observables inspired from entanglement and Quantum Information Theory to test the Standard Model of particle physics.

Chiara Macchiavello, G. Massimo Palma, Anton Zeilinger

Andreas R. Blass, Yuri G. Gurevich

No-go theorems prove that, under reasonable assumptions, classical hidden-variable theories cannot reproduce the predictions of quantum mechanics. Traditional no-go theorems proved that hidden-variable theories cannot predict correctly the values of observables. Recent expectation no-go theorems prove that hidden-variable theories cannot predict the expectations of observables. We prove the strongest expectation-focused no-go theorem to date. It is optimal in the sense that the natural weakenings of the assumptions and the natural strengthenings of the conclusion make the theorem fail. The literature on expectation no-go theorems strongly suggests that the expectation-focused approach is more general than the value-focused one. We establish that the expectation approach is not more general.