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arXiv:quant-ph/0404159

A new mathematical representation of Game Theory, I

Jinshan Wu

Published Apr 28, 2004• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a framework of new mathematical representation of Game Theory, including static classical game and static quantum game. The idea is to find a set of base vectors in every single-player strategy space and to define their inner product so as to form them as a Hilbert space, and then form a Hilbert space of system state. Basic ideas, concepts and formulas in Game Theory have been reexpressed in such a space of system state. This space provides more possible strategies than traditional classical game and traditional quantum game. So besides those two games, more games have been defined in different strategy spaces. All the games have been unified in the new representation and their relation has been discussed. General Nash Equilibrium for all the games has been proposed but without a general proof of the existence. Besides the theoretical description, ideas and technics from Statistical Physics, such as Kinetics Equation and Thermal Equilibrium can be easily incorporated into Game Theory through such a representation. This incorporation gives an endogenous method for refinement of Equilibrium State and some hits to simplify the calculation of Equilibrium State. The more privileges of this new representation depends on further application on more theoretical and real games. Here, almost all ideas and conclusions are shown by examples and argument, while, we wish, lately, we can give mathematical proof for most results.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/0404159

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In this paper, we introduce a framework of new mathematical representation of Game Theory, including static classical game and static quantum game. The idea is to find a set of base vectors in every single-player strategy space and to define their inner product so as to form them as a Hilbert space, and then form a Hilbert space of system state. Basic ideas, concepts and formulas in Game Theory have been reexpressed in such a space of system state. This space provides more possible strategies than traditional classical game and traditional quantum game. So besides those two games, more games have been defined in different strategy spaces. All the games have been unified in the new representation and their relation has been discussed. General Nash Equilibrium for all the games has been proposed but without a general proof of the existence. Besides the theoretical description, ideas and technics from Statistical Physics, such as Kinetics Equation and Thermal Equilibrium can be easily incorporated into Game Theory through such a representation. This incorporation gives an endogenous method for refinement of Equilibrium State and some hits to simplify the calculation of Equilibrium State. The more privileges of this new representation depends on further application on more theoretical and real games. Here, almost all ideas and conclusions are shown by examples and argument, while, we wish, lately, we can give mathematical proof for most results.
A new representation of Game Theory is developed in this paper. State of players is represented by a density matrix, and payoff function is a set of hermitian operators, which when applied onto the density matrix give the payoff of players. By this formulism, a new way to find the equilibria of games is given by generalizing the thermodynamical evolutionary process leading to equilibrium in Statistical Mechanics. And in this formulism, when quantum objects instead of classical objects are used as the objects in the game, it's naturally leads to the so-called Quantum Game Theory, but with a slight difference in the definition of strategy state of players: the probability distribution is replaced with a density matrix. Further more, both games of correlated and independent players can be reached in this single framework, while traditionally, they are treated separately by Non-cooperative Game Theory and Coalitional Game Theory. Because of the density matrix is used as state of players, besides classical correlated strategy, quantum entangled states can also be used as strategies, which is an entanglement of strategies between players, and it is different with the entanglement of objects' states as in the so-called Quantum Game Theory. At last, in the form of density matrix, a class of quantum games, where the payoff matrixes are commutative, can be reduced into classical games. In this sense, it will put the classical game as a special case of our quantum game.
We develop a rigorous mathematical framework for quantum game theory applied to static 2x2 games, extending classical concepts to the quantum setting where players may employ arbitrary unitary operations (pure strategies) or probability measures over the continuous group SU(2) (mixed strategies). The Eisert-Wilkens-Lewenstein protocol is introduced as the standard implementation of quantum 2x2 games. We prove the existence of Nash equilibria for continuous quantum mixed strategies via a fixed-point argument, generalising the classical Nash theorem to the quantum case.
Using the representation introduced in \cite{frame}, an artificial game in quantum strategy space is proposed and studied. Although it has well-known classical correspondence, which has classical mixture strategy Nash Equilibrium states, the equilibrium state of this quantum game is an entangled strategy (operator) state of the two players. By discovering such behavior, it partially shows the independent meaning of the new representation. The idea of entanglement of strategies, instead of quantum states, is proposed, and in some sense, such entangled strategy state can be regarded as a cooperative behavior between game players.
In the time since a merger of quantum mechanics and game theory was proposed formally in 1999, the two distinct perspectives apparent in this merger of applying quantum mechanics to game theory, referred to henceforth as the theory of "quantized games", and of applying game theory to quantum mechanics, referred to henceforth as "gaming the quantum", have become synonymous under the single ill-defined term "quantum game". Here, these two perspectives are delineated and a game-theoretically proper description of what makes a multi-player, non-cooperative game quantum mechanical, is given. Within the context of this description, finding a Nash equilibrium in a strictly competitive quantum game is shown to be equivalent to finding a solution to a simultaneous best approximation problem in the state space of quantum objects, thus setting up a framework for a game theory inspired study of "equilibrium" behavior of quantum physical systems such as those utilized in quantum information processing and computation.
Abstract We study properties of quantum strategies, which are complete specifications of a givenparty's actions in any multiple-round interaction involving the exchange of quantum information with one or more other parties. In particular, we focus on a representation of quantumstrategies that generalizes the Choi-Jamiol/kowski representation of quantum operations. This new representation associates with each strategy a positive semidefinite operator acting onlyon the tensor product of its input and output spaces. Various facts about such representations are established, and two applications are discussed: the first is a new and conceptually simpleproof of Kitaev's lower bound for strong coin-flipping, and the second is a proof of the exact characterization QRG = EXP of the class of problems having quantum refereed games. 1 Introduction The theory of games provides a general structure within which both cooperation and competitionamong independent entities may be modeled, and provides powerful tools for analyzing these models. Applications of this theory have fundamental importance in many areas of science.This paper considers games in which the players may exchange and process quantum information. We focus on competitive games, and within this context the types of games we consider arevery general. For instance, they allow multiple rounds of interaction among the players involved, and place no restrictions on players ' strategies beyond those imposed by the theory of quantuminformation. While classical games can be viewed as a special case of quantum games, it is important tostress that there are fundamental differences between general quantum games and classical games. For example, the two most standard representations of classical games, namely the normal formand extensive form representations, are not directly applicable to general quantum games. This is due to the nature of quantum information, which admits a continuum of pure (meaning extremal)
This work concentrates on simultaneous move non-cooperating quantum games. Part of it is evidently not new, but it is included for the sake self consistence, as it is devoted to introduction of the mathematical and physical grounds of the pertinent topics, and the way in which a simple classical game is modified to become a quantum game (a procedure referred to as a quantization of a classical game). The connection between game theory and information science is briefly stressed, and the role of quantum entanglement (that plays a central role in the theory of quantum games), is exposed. Armed with these tools, we investigate some basic concepts like the existence (or absence) of a pure strategy and mixed strategy Nash equilibrium and its relation with the degree of entanglement. The main results of this work are as follows: 1) Construction of a numerical algorithm based on the method of best response functions, designed to search for pure strategy Nash equilibrium in quantum games. The formalism is based on the discretization of a continuous variable into a mesh of points, and can be applied to quantum games that are built upon two-players two-strategies classical games, based on the method of best response functions. 2) Application of this algorithm to study the question of how the existence of pure strategy Nash equilibrium is related to the degree of entanglement (specified by a continuous parameter γ ). It is shown that when the classical game GC has a pure strategy Nash equilibrium that is not Pareto efficient, then the quantum game GQ with maximal entanglement (γ = π/2) has no pure strategy Nash equilibrium. By studying a non-symmetric prisoner dilemma game, it is found that there is a critical value 0γc such that for γγc there is a pure strategy Nash equilibrium and for γ≥γc there is no pure strategy Nash equilibrium. The behavior of the two payoffs as function of γ starts at that of the classical ones at (D, D) and approaches the cooperative classical ones at (C, C) (C = confess, D = don’t confess). 3) We then study Bayesian quantum games and show that under certain conditions, there is a pure strategy Nash equilibrium in such games even when entanglement is maximal. 4) We define the basic ingredients of a quantum game based on a two-player three strategies classical game. This requires the introduction of trits (instead of bits) and quantum trits (instead of quantum bits). It is proved that in this quantum game, there is no classical commensurability in the sense that the classical strategies are not obtained as a special case of the quantum strategies.