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Optica

Experimental test of quantum correlations from Platonic graphs

Ya Xiao, Zhen‐Peng Xu, Qiang Li, Hong-Yi Su, Kai Sun, Adán Cabello, Jin‐Shi Xu, Jing‐Ling Chen, Chuan‐Feng Li, Guang‐Can Guo

Published May 25, 2018• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Great effort has been made in the investigation of contextual correlations between compatible observables due to their both fundamental and practical importance. The graph-theoretic approach to correlate events has been proved to be an effective method in the characterization of quantum contextuality, which implies that quantum violations of noncontextual inequalities derived in the noncontextual hidden-variable models should be achievable. Finding experimentally more friendly and theoretically more powerful noncontextual inequalities associated with specific graphs is of particular interest. Here we consider Platonic graphs to vindicate the quantum maximum predicted by graph theory and test the quantum violation against the mixedness of the state. Among these solids we refer particularly to the icosahedron to build the experiment, as it gives rise to the largest quantum-classical difference. The contextual correlations are demonstrated on quantum four-dimensional states encoded in the spatial modes of single photons generated from a defect in a bulk silicon carbide. Our results shed new light on the conflict between quantum and classical physics and may promote deep understanding of the connection between quantum theory, graph theory, and operator theory.

DOI
10.1364/optica.5.000718

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Great effort has been made in the investigation of contextual correlations between compatible observables due to their both fundamental and practical importance. The graph-theoretic approach to correlate events has been proved to be an effective method in the characterization of quantum contextuality, which implies that quantum violations of noncontextual inequalities derived in the noncontextual hidden-variable models should be achievable. Finding experimentally more friendly and theoretically more powerful noncontextual inequalities associated with specific graphs is of particular interest. Here we consider Platonic graphs to vindicate the quantum maximum predicted by graph theory and test the quantum violation against the mixedness of the state. Among these solids we refer particularly to the icosahedron to build the experiment, as it gives rise to the largest quantum-classical difference. The contextual correlations are demonstrated on quantum four-dimensional states encoded in the spatial modes of single photons generated from a defect in a bulk silicon carbide. Our results shed new light on the conflict between quantum and classical physics and may promote deep understanding of the connection between quantum theory, graph theory, and operator theory.
Bell nonlocality and quantum contextuality are two important resources which, however, behave very differently in many tasks where the quantum correlation has an edge over its classical counterpart. In this work, we directly compare these two behaviors, which via the Cabello-Severini-Winter graph-theoretical approach, can be associated with a same exclusivity graph. In particular, we consider the exclusivity graph that leads to I3322{I}_{3322}I3322​-type inequalities in the Bell and the contextual scenarios, respectively. We find that maximal violation of Bell inequality is around 6.251, and maximal violation of the noncontextuality inequality is around 6.588 for a five-dimensional system and 6.571 for a four-dimensional system, respectively. The results predict a gap of $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremath{\approx}0.32$ between quantum contextuality and Bell nonlocality. We then present an experimental observation of the gap by employing both the maximally entangled photon pairs from the spontaneous parametric down-conversion process and the single photons encoded into qudits from an intrinsic defect in gallium nitride. Our results will further deepen the understanding of different types of quantum correlations.
Measurement scenarios containing events with relations of exclusivity represented by pentagons, heptagons, nonagons, etc., or their complements are the only ones in which quantum probabilities cannot be described classically. Interestingly, quantum theory predicts that the maximum values for any of these graphs cannot be achieved in Bell inequality scenarios. With the exception of the pentagon, this prediction remained experimentally unexplored. Here we test the quantum maxima for the heptagon and the complement of the heptagon using three- and five-dimensional quantum states, respectively. In both cases, we adopt two different encodings: linear transverse momentum and orbital angular momentum of single photons. Our results exclude maximally noncontextual hidden-variable theories and are in good agreement with the maxima predicted by quantum theory.
Abstract Contextuality is a phenomenon at the heart of quantum mechanics different from classical behavior and has been recently identified as a resource in quantum information processing. Experimental demonstration of contextuality is thus an important goal. We experimentally demonstrate a test of state-independent contextuality in a four-dimensional Hilbert space with single photons and violate the inequality by at least 387 standard deviations. Despite imperfections and possible measurement disturbance, our results cannot be explained in non-contextual models. We also provide a theoretical analysis of a test of contextuality with a coherent light field and show how the definitions affect the emergence of non-classical correlations. Our result sheds new light on the conflict between quantum and classical physics.
Quantum correlations are contextual yet, in general, nothing prevents the existence of even more contextual correlations. We identify and test a noncontextuality inequality in which the quantum violation cannot be improved by any hypothetical postquantum theory, and use it to experimentally obtain correlations in which the fraction of noncontextual correlations is less than 0.06. Our correlations are experimentally generated from the results of sequential compatible tests on a four-state quantum system encoded in the polarization and path of a single photon.
Contextuality, the impossibility of assigning context-independent measurement outcomes, is a critical resource for quantum computation and communication. No-signaling between successive measurements is an essential requirement that should be accomplished in any test of quantum contextuality and that is difficult to achieve in practice. Here, we introduce an optimal quantum state-independent contextuality inequality in which the deviation from the classical bound is maximal. We then experimentally test it using single photons generated from a defect in a bulk silicon carbide, while satisfying the requirement of no-signaling within the experimental error. Our results shed new light on the study of quantum contextuality under no-signaling conditions.