Matthias Kleinmann

State-independent experimental test of quantum contextuality

The question of whether quantum phenomena can be explained by classical models with hidden variables is the subject of a long-lasting debate. In 1964, Bell showed that certain types of classical models cannot explain the quantum mechanical predictions for specific states of distant particles, and some types of hidden variable models have been experimentally ruled out. An intuitive feature of classical models is non-contextuality: the property that any measurement has a value independent of other compatible measurements being carried out at the same time. However, a theorem derived by Kochen, Specker and Bell shows that non-contextuality is in conflict with quantum mechanics. The conflict resides in the structure of the theory and is independent of the properties of special states. It has been debated whether the Kochen–Specker theorem could be experimentally tested at all. First tests of quantum contextuality have been proposed only recently, and undertaken with photons and neutrons. But these tests required the generation of special quantum states and left various loopholes open. Here we perform an experiment with trapped ions that demonstrates a state-independent conflict with non-contextuality. The experiment is not subject to the detection loophole and we show that, despite imperfections and possible measurement disturbances, our results cannot be explained in non-contextual terms.

Geometric measure of entanglement for symmetric states

Is the closest product state to a symmetric entangled multiparticle state also symmetric? This question has appeared in the recent literature concerning the geometric measure of entanglement. First, we show that a positive answer can be derived from results concerning symmetric multilinear forms and homogeneous polynomials, implying that the closest product state can be chosen to be symmetric. We then prove the stronger result that the closest product state to any symmetric multiparticle quantum state is necessarily symmetric. Moreover, we discuss generalizations of our result and the case of translationally invariant states, which can occur in spin models.

Memory cost of quantum contextuality

The simulation of quantum effects requires certain classical resources, and quantifying them is an important step to characterize the difference between quantum and classical physics. For a simulation of the phenomenon of state-independent quantum contextuality, we show that the minimum amount of memory used by the simulation is the critical resource. We derive optimal simulation strategies for important cases and prove that reproducing the results of sequential measurements on a two-qubit system requires more memory than the information-carrying capacity of the system.

Bounding temporal quantum correlations.

Sequential measurements on a single particle play an important role in fundamental tests of quantum mechanics. We provide a general method to analyze temporal quantum correlations, which allows us to compute the maximal correlations for sequential measurements in quantum mechanics. As an application, we present the full characterization of temporal correlations in the simplest Leggett-Garg scenario and in the sequential measurement scenario associated with the most fundamental proof of the Kochen-Specker theorem.

Optimal Inequalities for State-Independent Contextuality

Contextuality is a natural generalization of nonlocality which does not need composite systems or spacelike separation and offers a wider spectrum of interesting phenomena. Most notably, in quantum mechanics there exist scenarios where the contextual behavior is independent of the quantum state. We show that the quest for an optimal inequality separating quantum from classical noncontextual correlations in a state-independent manner admits an exact solution, as it can be formulated as a linear program. We introduce the noncontextuality polytope as a generalization of the locality polytope and apply our method to identify two different tight optimal inequalities for the most fundamental quantum scenario with state-independent contextuality.

Systematic errors in current quantum state tomography tools.

Common tools for obtaining physical density matrices in experimental quantum state tomography are shown here to cause systematic errors. For example, using maximum likelihood or least squares optimization to obtain physical estimates for the quantum state, we observe a systematic underestimation of the fidelity and an overestimation of entanglement. Such strongly biased estimates can be avoided using linear evaluation of the data or by linearizing measurement operators yielding reliable and computational simple error bounds.

Bounding the quantum dimension with contextuality

We show that the phenomenon of quantum contextuality can be used to certify lower bounds on the dimension accessed by the measurement devices. To prove this, we derive bounds for different dimensions and scenarios of the simplest noncontextuality inequalities. Some of the resulting dimension witnesses work independently of the prepared quantum state. Our constructions are robust against noise and imperfections, and we show that a recent experiment can be viewed as an implementation of a state-independent quantum dimension witness.

Asymptotically perfect discrimination in the LOCC paradigm

We revisit the problem of discriminating orthogonal quantum states within the local quantum operation and classical communication (LOCC) paradigm. Our particular focus is on the asymptotic situation where the parties have infinite resources and the protocol may become arbitrarily long. Our main result is a necessary condition for perfect asymptotic LOCC discrimination. As an application, we prove that for complete product bases, unlimited resources are of no advantage. On the other hand, we identify an example, for which it still remains undecided whether unlimited resources are superior.

Finite key analysis for symmetric attacks in quantum key distribution

We introduce a constructive method to calculate the achievable secret key rate for a generic class of quantum key distribution protocols, when only a finite number

Certifying systematic errors in quantum experiments.

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