We develop a possibilistic semantic for quantum phenomena in an operational perspective. This semantic is based on a Chu duality between preparation processes and yes/no tests, the target space being a three-valued set equipped with an informational interpretation. After having defined the notion of states, we develop a precise axiomatic for the space of states. The 'information principle', proposed as a building block for some quantum axiomatic program, is translated into our framework to emphasize the quantum character of our description. This principle suffices to constrain the space of states to be a locally-boolean qualitative domain. The subset of pure states is then characterized within this domain structure. After having carefully precised the notions of properties and measurements, we explore the notion of compatibility between measurements. The existence of minimally-disturbing measurements is then emphasized as a key axiom to describe the space of yes/no tests. The conditions of existence of such measurements is translated into a simple property on the space of states, and an explicit formula for these measurements is given. Having reduced the space of yes/no tests to this set of minimally-disturbing operations, our Chu space becomes bi-extensional. The space of 'descriptions', associated to families of compatible measurements, inherits a structure of coherence domain. A subset of properties corresponding to 'classical properties' is identified and explored. Endly, the symmetries of the system are characterized as a general sub-class of Chu morphisms. We prove that these symmetries preserve the class of minimally-disturbing measurements and the orthogonality relation between states. Explicit expressions of these symmetries are identified for a large class of them, called 'linear symmetries'.
We develop a possibilistic semantic for quantum phenomena in an operational perspective. This semantic is based on a Chu duality between preparation processes and yes/no tests, the target space being a three-valued set equipped with an informational interpretation. After having defined the notion of states, we develop a precise axiomatic for the space of states. The 'information principle', proposed as a building block for some quantum axiomatic program, is translated into our framework to emphasize the quantum character of our description. This principle suffices to constrain the space of states to be a locally-boolean qualitative domain. The subset of pure states is then characterized within this domain structure. After having carefully precised the notions of properties and measurements, we explore the notion of compatibility between measurements. The existence of minimally-disturbing measurements is then emphasized as a key axiom to describe the space of yes/no tests. The conditions of existence of such measurements is translated into a simple property on the space of states, and an explicit formula for these measurements is given. Having reduced the space of yes/no tests to this set of minimally-disturbing operations, our Chu space becomes bi-extensional. The space of 'descriptions', associated to families of compatible measurements, inherits a structure of coherence domain. A subset of properties corresponding to 'classical properties' is identified and explored. Endly, the symmetries of the system are characterized as a general sub-class of Chu morphisms. We prove that these symmetries preserve the class of minimally-disturbing measurements and the orthogonality relation between states. Explicit expressions of these symmetries are identified for a large class of them, called 'linear symmetries'.
Abstract We introduce a class of probabilistic theories, termed Minimal Strongly Causal Operational Probabilistic Theories, where system dynamics are constrained to the minimal set of operations consistent with the set of states and permitting conditional tests. Specifically, the allowed instruments are limited to those derived from compositions of preparations, measurements, swap transformations, and conditional operations. We demonstrate that minimal theories with conditioning and a spanning set of non-separable states satisfy two quantum no-go theorems: no-information without disturbance and no-broadcasting. As a key example, we construct Minimal Strongly Causal Bilocal Classical Theory, a classical toy-theory that lacks incompatible measurements, preparation uncertainty relations, and is noncontextual (both Kochen–Specker and generalised), yet exhibits irreversibility of measurement disturbance, no-information without disturbance, and no-broadcasting. Therefore, the latter three properties cannot be understood per se as signatures of non-classicality. We further explore distinctions between a theory and its minimal strongly causal counterpart, showing that while the minimal strongly causal version of quantum theory diverges from full quantum theory, the same does not hold for classical theory. Additionally, we establish the pairwise independence of the properties of simpliciality, strong causality, and local discriminability.
The logic approach to axiomatic quantum mechanics via orthocomplemented partial ordered sets of yes–no measurements, which constitute the observing part of a concretely realizable experiment on microworld, has been criticized from the empirical point of view by Mielnik, which on the contrary privileges the convex scheme linked to the preparing part. In this work we do assume that a description of quantum phenomenology must take into account both these two parts in which every elementary experiment can be decomposed. According to this predecision, we develop an axiomatic approach based on indistinguishability principles of a quantum information system. The very general concept of yes–no measurement or ‘‘question’’ is accepted, and then the set of all questions is classified according to the behavior with respect to a phenomenological orthogonality relation. In particular, we single out the set F of fuzzy events or effects and the set E⊆F of exact events. The Mielnik critique is then refused since it regards the order structure of E using counterexamples which pertain to F/E. The notions of physical property and noperty are then introduced and an axiomatic foundation of quantum mechanics based on a pre-Hilbert space is discussed.
The quantum reference frames program is based on the idea that reference frames should be treated as quantum physical systems. In this work, we combine these insights with the emphasis on operationality, understood as refraining from introducing into the framework objects not directly related to in principle verifiable probabilities of measurement outcomes, and identifying the setups indistinguishable as such. Based on intuitions from special relativity and gauge theory, we introduce an operational notion of a quantum reference frame -- which is defined as a quantum system equipped with a covariant positive operator-valued measure (POVM) -- and build a framework on the concept of operational equivalence that allows us to enforce operationality by quotienting the quantum state spaces with equivalence relation of indistinguishability by the available effects, assumed to be invariant under gauge transformations, and framed in the sense of respecting the choice of the frame's POVM. Such effects are accessed via the yen construction, which maps effects on the system to those on the composite system, satisfying gauge invariance and framing. They are called relative, and the classes of states indistinguishable by them are referred to as relative states. We show that when the frame is localizable, meaning that it allows for states that give rise to a highly localized probability distribution of the frame's observable, by restricting the relative description upon such localized frame preparation we recover the usual, non-relational formalism of quantum mechanics. We provide a consistent way of translating between different relative descriptions by means of frame-change maps and compare these with the corresponding notions in other approaches to QRF, establishing an operational agreement in the domain of common applicability.
In the general theory of quantum measurement, one associates a positive semidefinite operator on a d-dimensional Hilbert space to each of the n possible outcomes of an arbitrary measurement. In the special case of a projective measurement, these operators are pairwise Hilbert--Schmidt orthogonal, but when n>d, orthogonality is restricted by positivity. This restriction has consequences which are not present from a classical perspective; in particular, we find it allows us to more precisely state the old quantum adage that it is impossible to extract information from a system without disturbance. Restricting attention throughout to the Luders state updating rule, we consider three properties of a measurement: its disturbance, a measure of how the expected post-measurement state deviates from the input state, its purity gain, a measure of the expected reduction of uncertainty resulting from measurement, and its orthogonality, a measure of the degree to which the measurement operators differ from an orthonormal set. We show that these quantities satisfy a simple algebraic relation amounting to an expression of an information-disturbance trade-off. Finally, we assess several classes of measurements on these grounds and identify symmetric informationally complete quantum measurements as the unique quantum analogs of a perfectly informative and nondisturbing classical ideal measurement.
The thesis investigates the possibility of a classical semantics for quantum propositional structures. A classical semantics is defined as a set of mappings each of which is (i) bivalent, i.e., the value 1 (true) or 0 (false) is assigned to each proposition, and (ii) truth-functional, i.e., the logical operations are preserved. In addition, this set must be "full", i.e., any pair of distinct propositions is assigned different values by some mapping in the set. When the propositions make assertions about the properties of classical or of quantum systems, the mappings should also be (iii) "state-induced", i.e., values assigned by the semantics should accord with values assigned by classical or by quantum mechanics. In classical propositional logic, (equivalence classes of) propositions form a Boolean algebra, and each semantic mapping assigns the value 1 to the members of a certain subset of the algebra, namely, an ultrafilter, and assigns 0 to the members of the dual ultraideal, where the union of these two subsets is the entire algebra. The propositional structures of classical mechanics are likewise Boolean algebras, so one can straightforwardly provide a classical semantics, which also satisfies (iii). However, quantum propositional structures are non-Boolean, so it is an open question whether a semantics satisfying (i), (ii) and (iii) can be provided. Von Neumann first proposed (1932) that the algebraic structures of the subspaces (or projectors) of Hilbert space be regarded as the pro-positional structures PQM of quantum mechanics. These structures have been formalized in two ways: as orthomodular lattices which have the binary operations "and", "or", defined among all elements, compatible [symbol omitted] and incompatible [symbol omitted]; and as partial-Boolean algebras which have the binary operations defined among only compatible elements. In the thesis, two basic senses in which these structures are non-Boolean are discriminated. And two notions of truth-functionality are distinguished: truth-functionality [symbols omitted] applicable to the PQM lattices; and truth-functionality [symbol omitted] applicable to both the lattices and partial-Boolean algebras. Then it is shown how the lattice definitions of "and", "or", among incompatibles rule out a bivalent, truth-functional [symbols omitted] semantics for any lattice containing incompatible, elements. In contrast, the Gleason and Kochen-Specker proofs of the impossibility of hidden-variables for quantum mechanics show the impossibility of a bivalent, truth-functional [symbol omitted] semantics for three-or-higher dimensional Hilbert space structures; and the presence of incompatible elements is necessary but is not sufficient to rule out such a semantics. As for (iii), each quantum state-induced expectation-function on a PQM truth-functionally assigns 1 and 0 values to the elements in a ultrafilter and dual ultraideal of PQM³ where, in general the union of an ultrafilter and its dual ultraideal is smaller than the entire structure. Thus it is argued that each expectation-function is the quantum analog of a classical semantic mapping, even though the domain where each expectation-function is bivalent and truth-functional is usually a non-Boolean substructure of PQM. The final portion of the thesis surveys proposals for the introduction of hidden variables into quantum mechanics, proofs of the impossibility of such hidden-variable proposals, and criticisms of these impossibility proofs. And arguments in favour of the partial-Boolean algebra, rather than the orthomodular lattice, formalization of the quantum propositional structures are reviewed.
It is not surprising that our language should be incapable of describing processes occurring within atoms, for, as has been remarked, it was invented to describe the experiences of daily life, … Fortunately, mathematics is not subject to this limitation, and it has been possible to invent a mathematical scheme–the quantum theory–which seems entirely adequate for the treatment of atomic processes. Werner Heisenberg, The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (1930) In this chapter we introduce the mathematical structure of quantum theory, for a finite number of systems and finite dimension, starting from three simple Hilbert-space postulates, and based on the intuitive notions of state, transformation, and effect, within a causal context. Such notions will be formalized in a general non-causal context in Chapter 3, which is devoted to the informational framework. We will assume the reader has a basic knowledge of matrix analysis and of operators over Hilbert spaces. Comments about the extension to infinite dimensions, continuous outcome-spaces, and infinitely many systems can be found in the notes at the end of the chapter. From the three simple Hilbert-space postulates, the present chapter extracts six principles, which will become the postulates for quantum theory in the axiomatic derivation presented in Part III of the book. In addition, we will take the opportunity to present and explore many relevant features of the theory – including its convex and causal structure, the Choi–Jamiołkowski isomorphism, and relevant notions, such as those of POVM, complete positivity of maps, quantum operation and channels, entangled states, state discrimination, tomography of states, and transformations. The purification principle will open the stage to the dilation theorems of the theory of quantum open systems, along with other consequences, such as the existence of faithful and steering states, the theorem of no information without disturbance, quantum teleportation, and more. We will review the quantum no-cloning and no-programming theorems, and finally provide a thorough derivation of the theory of quantum channel inversion, which is the backbone of the general theory of quantum error correction in quantum information. Additional interesting topics will be classical information theory as a restriction of quantum information theory, and a critical reconsideration of the von Neumann postulate and the notion of observable.