Abstract Identifying the causal structure of quantum channels is essential for verifying quantum networks and certifying quantum resources. We introduce a characterization-free protocol enabling two isolated players, Alice and Bob, to identify the definite-order strategy adopted by an unknown environment mediating their channels. Without assuming knowledge of their devices or the environment, the players infer the causal order solely from input-output statistics by testing Markovian conditions that we prove are necessary and sufficient for each strategy class. Remarkably, we prove that even with a minimal random channel consisting of two-outcome POVMs and two-state preparations, the protocol retains full performance with probability one. We experimentally demonstrate the protocol on an optical platform, reliably distinguishing between several strategies. Our results provide a strong and robust tool for causal inference in quantum networks.
Abstract Identifying the causal structure of quantum channels is essential for verifying quantum networks and certifying quantum resources. We introduce a characterization-free protocol enabling two isolated players, Alice and Bob, to identify the definite-order strategy adopted by an unknown environment mediating their channels. Without assuming knowledge of their devices or the environment, the players infer the causal order solely from input-output statistics by testing Markovian conditions that we prove are necessary and sufficient for each strategy class. Remarkably, we prove that even with a minimal random channel consisting of two-outcome POVMs and two-state preparations, the protocol retains full performance with probability one. We experimentally demonstrate the protocol on an optical platform, reliably distinguishing between several strategies. Our results provide a strong and robust tool for causal inference in quantum networks.
Identifying the causal structure of quantum channels is essential for verifying quantum networks and certifying quantum resources. We introduce a characterization-free protocol enabling two isolated players, Alice and Bob, to identify the definite-order strategy adopted by an unknown environment mediating their channels. Without assuming knowledge of their devices or the environment, the players infer the causal order solely from input-output statistics by testing Markovian conditions that we prove are necessary and sufficient for each strategy class. Remarkably, we prove that, under an explicit generic-sampling condition, a randomly selected binary measure-and-prepare setting retains exact-distribution identifiability with probability one. In the optical experiment, we use a reduced-randomness construction in which several preparation states are kept fixed. Nevertheless, the Markov-condition-based procedure yields the expected causal-order and memory-presence classification for every tested process realization and setting. This observation suggests that the randomization assumptions of the general theorem may be relaxed. Our results provide an operational framework for causal inference in quantum networks.
Identifying causal order from restricted projective data is generally nontrivial. When two quantum players interact only through an unobserved environment, the available local measurement statistics are typically not tomographically complete, so the underlying process cannot in general be reconstructed exactly from the observed distribution. As a result, causal direction can be statistically identifiable in some cases but fundamentally indistinguishable in others.
In this work, we determine necessary and sufficient conditions for deciding when an observed distribution is compatible with a memoryless sequential quantum process in a fixed direction. We show that directional conditional-independence structure and the positivity criterion based on the pseudo-density matrix, as developed in recent work by We show that directional conditional-independence structure and PDM-based positivity criteria are not sufficient by themselves. We then specialize to the two-qubit Pauli setting, where the problem remains non-tomographic but becomes explicitly tractable. In this regime, we characterize when the two sequential directions are statistically indistinguishable, and we show by example that positivity alone does not exclude more general memoryful strategies, whereas the additional algebraic consistency requirement does.
By certifying quantum operations from measurement statistics directly, without any assumption on the internal workings of the devices involved, self-testing enables a uniquely reliable identification of quantum objects. While such device-independent characterization has been shown to be possible for states, measurements and channels, it has so far not been extended to quantum supermaps -- operations that act on quantum channels themselves and can combine them in either a well-defined causal order or also, remarkably, in an indefinite causal order. Here we show that quantum supermaps can be identified device-independently. Specifically, we obtain two levels of certification, depending on the network structure of the experiment: when each slot of the supermap accepts a single uncharacterized black box, identification up to local embedding combs is obtained; when several black boxes are inserted within each slot, identification up to local extracting and injecting maps is achieved. We illustrate our approach on four examples -- the identity comb, a bit-flip error-correcting comb, the comb describing Grover's algorithm, and the quantum switch -- providing in particular the first self-test of both a quantum algorithmic comb and a causally indefinite quantum process. Notably, in the latter case, this provides a new way to certify causal indefiniteness in a device-independent manner.
We propose a bipartite quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol based on causal nonseparability: the presence of a resource -- a process matrix -- that does not correspond to any definite causal order between two parties. In our protocol, Alice and Bob perform local operations arranged in a ``causal-order guessing game,'' whereby each round yields an 85.35\% probability of matching bits when the communication is undisturbed. This raw matching probability (or equivalently, a ∼14.65% error rate) is amenable to standard forward error-correction strategies. We further discuss the practical construction of the QKD protocol using indefinite causal order, where several different scenarios are deeply analyzed.
We look into the task of differentiating between any two quantum channels and reconstructing them from the obtained measurement statistics with possibly limited information about the experimental set-up. We employ the communication matrix formalism where the measurement statistics of a prepare-and-measure scenario is represented as a stochastic communication matrix. In order to differentiate between any two quantum channels, the informational completeness of the set-up is both necessary and sufficient. On the other hand, if we want to uniquely characterize any quantum channel, in addition we also need to have a complete description of the set-up. We show that in many important cases we can deduce this information directly from the communication matrix of the set-up before applying the channel. Given that we trust the dimension of the system, we show that we can deduce the information completeness of the set-up directly from the rank of the communication matrix. Furthermore, we show that another quantity of the communication matrix, called the information storability, can be used to self-test the set-up (up to unitary or antiunitary freedom) for an important class of states and measurements. This provides us a semi-device-independent way to identify quantum channels from the prepare-and-measure statistics. Lastly, we consider scenarios where we might have some additional information about the channels or additional resources at our disposal which could help us relax some of the assumptions of the proposed scenario.
Quantum processes with indefinite causal order challenge the classical assumption that operations must occur in a single fixed temporal sequence. The quantum switch provides a concrete setting in which two operation orders, A≺B and B≺A, are coherently controlled by a quantum system. In the strict process matrix formulation of the lazy guess your neighbour’s input (LGYNI) game, however, quantum theory, including the quantum switch, does not violate the standard causal inequality when probabilities are computed solely from local instruments. In this work, we study an extended control-assisted operational protocol in which the control system of the quantum switch is measured and used to define the task output. We compare increasingly expressive strategy classes, including single-qubit SU(2) operations, product target-ancilla operations, and entangling Cartan-decomposed two-qubit operations with generalized POVMs. Restricted models saturate or remain below the 3/4 fixed-order benchmark, whereas the optimized Cartan + ancilla + POVM strategy reaches Psuccext≈0.83596, demonstrating enhanced task performance within the extended protocol. The optimized strategy remains operationally no-signaling to numerical precision and retains its extended protocol advantage under more than 25% white noise admixture. These results identify the operational resources required for control-assisted quantum switch enhancement and support the view that indefinite temporal order can be used as a quantum informational resource without implying a breakdown of operational causality.