Bell-inequality violation is one of the most widely known manifestations of entanglement in quantum mechanics; indicating that experiments on physically separated quantum mechanical systems cannot be given a local realistic description. However, despite the importance of Bell inequalities, it is not known in general how to determine whether a given entangled state will violate a Bell inequality. This is because one can choose to make many different measurements on a quantum system to test any given Bell inequality and the optimization over measurements is a high-dimensional variational problem. In order to better understand this problem we present algorithms that provide, for a given quantum state and Bell inequality, both a lower bound and an upper bound on the maximal violation of the inequality. In many cases these bounds determine measurements that would demonstrate violation of the Bell inequality or provide a bound that rules out the possibility of a violation. Both bounds apply techniques from convex optimization and the methodology for creating upper bounds allows them to be systematically improved. Examples are given to illustrate how these algorithms can be used to conclude definitively if some quantum states violate a given Bell inequality.
Bell-inequality violation is one of the most widely known manifestations of entanglement in quantum mechanics; indicating that experiments on physically separated quantum mechanical systems cannot be given a local realistic description. However, despite the importance of Bell inequalities, it is not known in general how to determine whether a given entangled state will violate a Bell inequality. This is because one can choose to make many different measurements on a quantum system to test any given Bell inequality and the optimization over measurements is a high-dimensional variational problem. In order to better understand this problem we present algorithms that provide, for a given quantum state and Bell inequality, both a lower bound and an upper bound on the maximal violation of the inequality. In many cases these bounds determine measurements that would demonstrate violation of the Bell inequality or provide a bound that rules out the possibility of a violation. Both bounds apply techniques from convex optimization and the methodology for creating upper bounds allows them to be systematically improved. Examples are given to illustrate how these algorithms can be used to conclude definitively if some quantum states violate a given Bell inequality.
It is one of the most remarkable features of quantum physics that measurements on spatially separated systems cannot always be described by a locally causal theory. In such a theory, the outcomes of local measurements are determined in advance solely by some unknown (or hidden) variables and the choice of local measurements. Correlations that are allowed within the framework of a locally causal theory are termed classical. Typically, the fact that quantum mechanics does not always result in classical correlations is revealed by the violation of Bell inequalities, which are constraints that have to be satisfied by any classical correlations. It has been known for a long time that entanglement is necessary to demonstrate nonclassical correlations, and hence a Bell inequality violation. However, since some entangled quantum states are known to admit explicit locally causal models, the exact role of entanglement in Bell inequality violation has remained obscure. This thesis provides both a comprehensive review on these issues as well as a report on new discoveries made to clarify the relationship between entanglement and Bell inequality violation. In particular, within the framework of a standard Bell experiment, i.e., a Bell inequality test that is directly performed on a single copy of a quantum state r, we have derived two algorithms to determine, respectively, a lower bound and an upper bound on the strength of correlations that r can offer for any given Bell inequality. Both of these algorithms make use convex optimization techniques in the form of a semidefinite program. By examples, we show that these algorithms can often be used in tandem, in conjunction with convexity arguments, to determine if a quantum state can offer nonclassical correlations and hence violates a given Bell inequality. On the other hand, since a standard Bell experiment typically involves measurements over many copies of the quantum systems, we have also investigated the possibility of enhancing the strength of nonclassical correlation by, instead, performing collective measurements on multiple copies of the quantum systems. Our findings show that even without postselection, such joint measurements may also lead to stronger nonclassical correlations, and hence a better Bell inequality violation. Meanwhile, previous studies have indicated that entangled state admitting locally causal models may still lead to observable nonclassical correlations if, prior to a standard Bell experiment, the state is subjected to some appropriate local preprocessing. This phenomenon of hidden nonlocality was discovered more than a decade ago, but to date, it is still not known if all entangled states can demonstrate nonclassical correlations through these more sophisticated Bell experiments. A key result in this thesis then consists of showing that for all bipartite entangled states, observable nonclassical correlations, in the form of a Bell-CHSH inequality violation, can indeed be derived if we allow both local preprocessing and the usage of shared ancillary state which by itself does not violate the Bell-CHSH inequality. This establishes a kind of equivalence between bipartite entanglement and states that cannot be simulated by classical correlations. In summary, for a standard Bell experiment where no local preprocessing on a quantum state r is allowed, we have provided two algorithms that can be used in tandem to determine if r can be simulated by a locally causal theory, whereas in the scenario where local preprocessing is allowed, we have demonstrated that bipartite entangled states are precisely those which cannot always be simulated classically.
We have determined the maximum quantum violation of 241 tight bipartite Bell inequalities with up to five two-outcome measurement settings per party by constructing the appropriate measurement operators in up to six-dimensional complex and eight-dimensional real-component Hilbert spaces using numerical optimization. Out of these inequalities 129 have been introduced here. In 43 cases higher-dimensional component spaces gave larger violation than qubits, and in three occasions the maximum was achieved with six-dimensional spaces. We have also calculated upper bounds on these Bell inequalities using a method proposed recently. For all but 20 inequalities the best solution found matched the upper bound. Surprisingly, the simplest inequality of the set examined, with only three measurement settings per party, was not among them, despite the high dimensionality of the Hilbert space considered. We also computed detection threshold efficiencies for the maximally entangled qubit pair. These could be lowered in several instances if degenerate measurements were also allowed.
Bell inequalities were meant to test quantum mechanics vs local hidden variable models, but can also be used to verify entanglement. For entanglement verification purposes one assumes the validity of quantum mechanics as well as quantum descriptions of one's measurements. With the help of these assumptions it is possible to derive a strengthened Bell inequality whose violation implies entanglement. We generalize known examples of such inequalities by relating the expectation value of the Bell operator to a particular quantitative measure of entanglement, namely, the negativity. Moreover, we obtain statistics illustrating the fact that violating a given (strengthened or not) Bell inequality is a much more rare feat for a quantum state of two qubits than it is to be entangled.
Bell's inequalities are important to our understanding of quantum foundations and critical to several quantum technologies. A recent work [E. Wolfe and S. F. Yelin, Phys. Rev. A 86, 012123 (2012)] derived three parametrized families of two-particle, two-setting Bell inequalities. These inequalities are important as they theoretically explore a larger volume of allowed quantum correlations over local hidden-variable models than previous results [A. Cabello, Phys. Rev. A 72, 012113 (2005)] by exploiting marginal, or single particle measurements. In this work we subject those predictions to experimental test using nonmaximally entangled photon pairs to optimize the expected violation. We find excellent agreement with the upper bounds predicted by quantum mechanics with violations of the limits imposed by local hidden-variable models as large as almost 30$\ensuremath{\sigma}$ for the optimal parameters and a significant violation over a wide range of parameters.
Last years, bounds on the maximal quantum violation of general Bell inequalities were intensively discussed in the literature via different mathematical tools. In the present paper, we analyze quantum violation of general Bell inequalities via the LqHV (local quasi hidden variable) modelling framework, correctly reproducing the probabilistic description of every quantum correlation scenario. The LqHV mathematical framework allows us to derive for all d and N a new upper bound (2d − 1)N−1 on the maximal violation by an N-qudit state of all general Bell inequalities, also, new upper bounds on the maximal violation by an N-qudit state of general Bell inequalities for S settings per site. These new upper bounds essentially improve all the known precise upper bounds on quantum violation of general multipartite Bell inequalities. For some S, d, and N, the new upper bounds are attainable.
It is one of the most remarkable features of quantum physics that measurements on spatially separated systems cannot always be described by a locally causal theory. In such a theory, the outcomes of local measurements are determined in advance solely by some unknown (or hidden) variables and the choice of local measurements. Correlations that are allowed within the framework of a locally causal theory are termed classical. Typically, the fact that quantum mechanics does not always result in classical correlations is revealed by the violation of Bell inequalities, which are constraints that have to be satisfied by any classical correlations. It has been known for a long time that entanglement is necessary to demonstrate nonclassical correlations, and hence a Bell inequality violation. However, since some entangled quantum states are known to admit explicit locally causal models, the exact role of entanglement in Bell inequality violation has remained obscure. This thesis provides both a comprehensive review on these issues as well as a report on new discoveries made to clarify the relationship between entanglement and Bell inequality violation.