Our common understanding of the physical world deeply relies on the notion that events are ordered with respect to some time parameter, with past events serving as causes for future ones. Nonetheless, it was recently found that it is possible to form
ulate quantum mechanics without any reference to a global time or causal structure. The resulting framework includes new kinds of quantum resources that allow performing tasks - in particular, the violation of causal inequalities - which are impossible for events ordered according to a global causal order. However, no physical implementation of such resources is known. Here we show that a recently demonstrated resource for quantum computation - the quantum switch - is a genuine example of indefinite causal order. We do this by introducing a new tool - the causal witness - which can detect the causal nonseparability of any quantum resource that is incompatible with a definite causal order. We show however that the quantum switch does not violate any causal nequality.
We study the extent to which psi-epistemic models for quantum measurement statistics---models where the quantum state does not have a real, ontic status---can explain the indistinguishability of nonorthogonal quantum states. This is done by comparing
the overlap of any two quantum states with the overlap of the corresponding classical probability distributions over ontic states in a psi-epistemic model. It is shown that in Hilbert spaces of dimension $d geq 4$, the ratio between the classical and quantum overlaps in any psi-epistemic model must be arbitrarily small for certain nonorthogonal states, suggesting that such models are arbitrarily bad at explaining the indistinguishability of quantum states. For dimensions $d$ = 3 and 4, we construct explicit states and measurements that can be used experimentally to put stringent bounds on the ratio of classical-to-quantum overlaps in psi-epistemic models, allowing one in particular to rule out maximally psi-epistemic models more efficiently than previously proposed.
The quantification of the measurement uncertainty aspect of Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle---that is, the study of trade-offs between accuracy and disturbance, or between accuracies in an approximate joint measurement on two incompatible observabl
es---has regained a lot of interest recently. Several approaches have been proposed and debated. In this paper we consider Ozawas definitions for inaccuracies (as root-mean-square errors) in approximate joint measurements, and study how these are constrained in different cases, whether one specifies certain properties of the approximations---namely their standard deviations and/or their bias---or not. Extending our previous work [C. Branciard, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 110, 6742 (2013)], we derive new error-trade-off relations, which we prove to be tight for pure states. We show explicitly how all previously known relations for Ozawas inaccuracies follow from ours. While our relations are in general not tight for mixed states, we show how these can be strengthened and how tight relations can still be obtained in that case.
This note is a reply to M. Navascues claim that all entangled states violate Leggetts crypto-nonlocality [arXiv:1303.5124v2]. I argue that such a conclusion can only be reached if one introduces additional assumptions that further restrict Leggetts n
otion of crypto-nonlocality. If a contrario one sticks only to Leggetts original axioms, there exist entangled states whose correlations are always compatible with Leggetts crypto-nonlocality---which is thus a genuinely different concept from quantum separability. I clarify in this note the relation between these two notions, together also with Bells assumption of local causality.
Heisenbergs uncertainty principle is one of the main tenets of quantum theory. Nevertheless, and despite its fundamental importance for our understanding of quantum foundations, there has been some confusion in its interpretation: although Heisenberg
s first argument was that the measurement of one observable on a quantum state necessarily disturbs another incompatible observable, standard uncertainty relations typically bound the indeterminacy of the outcomes when either one or the other observable is measured. In this paper, we quantify precisely Heisenbergs intuition. Even if two incompatible observables cannot be measured together, one can still approximate their joint measurement, at the price of introducing some errors with respect to the ideal measurement of each of them. We present a new, tight relation characterizing the optimal trade-off between the error on one observable versus the error on the other. As a particular case, our approach allows us to characterize the disturbance of an observable induced by the approximate measurement of another one; we also derive a stronger error-disturbance relation for this scenario.
The problem of demonstrating entanglement is central to quantum information processing applications. Resorting to standard entanglement witnesses requires one to perfectly trust the implementation of the measurements to be performed on the entangled
state, which may be an unjustified assumption. Inspired by the recent work of F. Buscemi [Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 200401 (2012)], we introduce the concept of Measurement-Device-Independent Entanglement Witnesses (MDI-EWs), which allow one to demonstrate entanglement of all entangled quantum states with untrusted measurement apparatuses. We show how to systematically obtain such MDI-EWs from standard entanglement witnesses. Our construction leads to MDI-EWs that are loss-tolerant, and can be implemented with current technology.
Entanglement swapping is a process by which two initially independent quantum systems can become entangled and generate nonlocal correlations. To characterize such correlations, we compare them to those predicted by bilocal models, where systems that
are initially independent are described by uncorrelated states. We extend in this paper the analysis of bilocal correlations initiated in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 170401 (2010)]. In particular, we derive new Bell-type inequalities based on the bilocality assumption in different scenarios, we study their possible quantum violations, and analyze their resistance to experimental imperfections. The bilocality assumption, being stronger than Bells standard local causality assumption, lowers the requirements for the demonstration of quantumness in entanglement swapping experiments.
A common problem in Bell type experiments is the well-known detection loophole: if the detection efficiencies are not perfect and if one simply post-selects the conclusive events, one might observe a violation of a Bell inequality, even though a loca
l model could have explained the experimental results. In this paper, we analyze the set of all post-selected correlations that can be explained by a local model, and show that it forms a polytope, larger than the Bell local polytope. We characterize the facets of this post-selected local polytope in the CHSH scenario, where two parties have binary inputs and outcomes. Our approach gives new insights on the detection loophole problem.
We consider the mixed three-qubit bound entangled state defined as the normalized projector on the subspace that is complementary to an Unextendible Product Basis [C. H. Bennett et. al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 5385 (1999)]. Using the fact that no produ
ct state lies in the support of that state, we compute its entanglement by providing a basis of its subspace formed by minimally-entangled states. The approach is in principle applicable to any entanglement measure; here we provide explicit values for both the geometric measure of entanglement and a generalized concurrence.
Quantum systems that have never interacted can become nonlocally correlated through a process called entanglement swapping. To characterize nonlocality in this context, we introduce local models where quantum systems that are initially uncorrelated a
re described by uncorrelated local variables. While a pair of maximally entangled qubits prepared in the usual way (i.e., emitted from a common source) requires a visibility close to 70% to violate a Bell inequality, we show that an entangled pair generated through entanglement swapping will already violate a Bell inequality for visibilities as low as 50% under our assumption.
