Device-independent tests of quantum states

Abstract

We construct a correspondence between quantum states and the observable input-output correlations they are compatible with. The problem is framed as a game involving an experimenter, claiming to be able to prepare some family of states, and a theoretician, whose aim is to falsify such a claim based on observed correlations only. For any such a claim, the optimal strategy consists of providing: i) to the experimenter, all the measurements that generate extremal input-output correlations, and ii) to the theoretician, the full characterization of such correlations. Comparing the correlations observed in i) with those predicted by ii) corresponds to device-independently testing the states. While no assumption is made about the actual states and measurements, we derive the optimal strategy in closed-form for the case when the claim consists of qubit states and the performed measurements are tests, and as applications we specify our results to the case of any pair of pure states and to the case of pure states uniformly distributed on the Bloch equatorial plane.