André Allan Méthot

Limit on Nonlocality in Any World in Which Communication Complexity Is Not Trivial

Bell proved that quantum entanglement enables two spacelike separated parties to exhibit classically impossible correlations. Even though these correlations are stronger than anything classically achievable, they cannot be harnessed to make instantaneous (faster than light) communication possible. Yet, Popescu and Rohrlich have shown that even stronger correlations can be defined, under which instantaneous communication remains impossible. This raises the question: Why are the correlations achievable by quantum mechanics not maximal among those that preserve causality? We give a partial answer to this question by showing that slightly stronger correlations would result in a world in which communication complexity becomes trivial.

Testing the Dimension of Hilbert Spaces

Nicolas Brunner, Stefano Pironio, Antonio Acin, 3 Nicolas Gisin, André Allan Méthot, and Valerio Scarani Group of Applied Physics, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain ICREA-Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Barcelona, Spain Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, Singapore (Dated: May 9, 2008)

On the power of non-local boxes

A non-local box is a virtual device that has the following property: given that Alice inputs a bit at her end of the device and that Bob does likewise, it produces two bits, one at Alices end and one at Bobs end, such that the XOR of the outputs is equal to the AND of the inputs. This box, inspired from the CHSH inequality, was first proposed by Popescu and Rohrlich to examine the question: given that a maximally entangled pair of qubits is non-local, why is it not maximally non-local? We believe that understanding the power of this box will yield insight into the non-locality of quantum mechanics. It was shown recently by Cerf, Gisin, Massar and Popescu, that this imaginary device is able to simulate correlations from any measurement on a singlet state. Here, we show that the non-local box can in fact do much more: through the simulation of the magic square pseudo-telepathy game and the Mermin-GHZ pseudo-telepathy game, we show that the non-local box can simulate quantum correlations that no entangled pair of qubits can, in a bipartite scenario and even in a multi-party scenario. Finally we show that a single non-local box cannot simulate all quantum correlations and propose a generalization for a multi-party non-local box. In particular, we show quantum correlations whose simulation requires an exponential amount of non-local boxes, in the number of maximally entangled qubit pairs.

Simulating POVMs on EPR pairs with 5.7 bits of expected communication

Abstract.We present a classical protocol for simulating correlations obtained by bipartite POVMs on an EPR pair. The protocol uses shared random variables (also known as local hidden variables) augmented by 5.7 bits of expected communication.

No nonlocal box is universal

We show that standard nonlocal boxes, also known as Popescu-Rohrlich machines, are not sufficient to simulate any nonlocal correlations that do not allow signaling. This was known in the multipartite scenario, but we extend the result to the bipartite case. We then generalize this result further by showing that no finite set containing any finite-output-alphabet nonlocal boxes can be a universal set for nonlocality.

Entanglement swapping, light cones and elements of reality

Recently, a number of two-participant all-versus-nothing Bell experiments have been proposed. Here, we give local realistic explanations for these experiments. More precisely, we examine the scenario where a participant swaps his entanglement with two other participants and then is removed from the experiment; we also examine the scenario where two particles are in the same light cone, i.e. belong to a single participant. Our conclusion is that, in both cases, the proposed experiments are not convincing proofs against local realism.

CAN QUANTUM-MECHANICAL DESCRIPTION OF PHYSICAL REALITY BE CONSIDERED INCOMPLETE?

In loving memory of Asher Peres, we discuss a most important and influential paper written in 1935 by his thesis supervisor and mentor Nathan Rosen, together with Albert Einstein and Boris Podolsky. In that paper, the trio known as EPR questioned the completeness of quantum mechanics. The authors argued that the then-new theory should not be considered final because they believed it incapable of describing physical reality. The epic battle between Einstein and Bohr intensified following the latters response later the same year. Three decades elapsed before John S. Bell gave a devastating proof that the EPR argument was fatally flawed. The modest purpose of our paper is to give a critical analysis of the original EPR paper and point out its logical shortcomings in a way that could have been done 70 years ago, with no need to wait for Bells theorem. We also present an overview of Bohrs response in the interest of showing how it failed to address the gist of the EPR argument.

MINIMAL BELL–KOCHEN–SPECKER PROOFS WITH POVMs ON QUBITS

There are many different definitions of what a Bell–Kochen–Specker proof with POVMs might be. Here, we present and discuss the minimal proof on qubits for three of these definitions and show that they are indeed minimal.

Classical, quantum and nonsignalling resources in bipartite games

We study bipartite games that arise in the context of nonlocality with the help of graph theory. Our main results are alternate proofs that deciding whether a no-communication classical winning strategy exists for certain games (called forbidden-edge and covering games) is NP-complete, while the problem of deciding if these games admit a nonsignalling winning strategy is in P. We discuss relations between quantum winning strategies and orthogonality graphs. We also show that every pseudotelepathy game yields both a proof of the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem and an instance of a two-prover interactive proof system that is classically sound, but that becomes unsound when provers use shared entanglement.

Classical, Quantum and Non-signalling Resources in Bipartite Games

We study bipartite games that arise in the context of nonlocality with the help of graph theory. Our main results are alternate proofs that deciding whether a no-communication classical winning strategy exists for certain games (called forbidden-edge and covering games) is NP- complete, while the problem of deciding if these games admit a non-signalling winning strategy is in P. We discuss relations between quantum winning strategies and orthogonality graphs. We also show that every pseudo-telepathy game yields both a proof of the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem and an instance of a two-prover interactive proof system that is classically sound, but that becomes unsound when provers use shared entanglement.