Mermin Inequality Research Articles

Observation of quantum nonlocality in Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger entanglement on a silicon chip

Nonlocality is the defining feature of quantum entanglement. Entangled states with multiple particles are of crucial importance in fundamental tests of quantum physics as well as in many quantum information tasks. One of the archetypal multipartite quantum states, Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state, allows one to observe the striking conflict of quantum physics to local realism in the so-called all-versus-nothing way. This is profoundly different from Bell’s theorem for two particles, which relies on statistical predictions. Here, we demonstrate an integrated photonic chip capable of generating and manipulating the four-photon GHZ state. We perform a complete characterization of the four-photon GHZ state using quantum state tomography and obtain a state fidelity of 0.729±0.006. We further use the all-versus-nothing test and the Mermin inequalities to witness the quantum nonlocality of GHZ entanglement. Our work paves the way to perform fundamental tests of quantum physics with complex integrated quantum devices.

Demonstration of hypergraph-state quantum information processing

Complex entangled states are the key resources for measurement-based quantum computations, which is realised by performing a sequence of measurements on initially entangled qubits. Executable quantum algorithms in the graph-state quantum computing model are determined by the entanglement structure and the connectivity of entangled qubits. By generalisation from graph-type entanglement in which only the nearest qubits interact to a new type of hypergraph entanglement in which any subset of qubits can be arbitrarily entangled via hyperedges, hypergraph states represent more general resource states that allow arbitrary quantum computation with Pauli universality. Here we report experimental preparation, certification and processing of complete categories of four-qubit hypergraph states under the principle of local unitary equivalence, on a fully reprogrammable silicon-photonic quantum chip. Genuine multipartite entanglement for hypergraph states is certificated by the characterisation of entanglement witness, and the observation of violations of Mermin inequalities without any closure of distance or detection loopholes. A basic measurement-based protocol and an efficient resource state verification by color-encoding stabilizers are implemented with local Pauli measurement to benchmark the building blocks for hypergraph-state quantum computation. Our work prototypes hypergraph entanglement as a general resource for quantum information processing.

The persistency of sharing tripartite nonlocality with noises

Recently, researchers have proven that an infinite number of Charlies and a pair of Alice and Bob can share standard tripartite nonlocality and genuinely nonsignal nonlocality by violating the Mermin and NS inequalities within tripartite systems. This discovery undoubtedly offers new perspectives and potential in quantum information science. However, it should be noted that the result is derived under the highly idealized assumption that the quantum system is perfect and free from external disturbances. In practice, the realization of this ideal state is a challenging proposition. As a fundamental aspect of quantum mechanics, the phenomenon of quantum entanglement is susceptible to the influence of external factors, such as noise, during its practical implementation. Additionally, the process of quantum measurement can introduce potential errors, which may potentially diminish or even negate the observed quantum nonlocality. In light of the above, we examine whether the corresponding quantum nonlocality can be shared indefinitely despite the inevitable occurrence of noise and error. The aim of this paper is to examine and discuss the persistency of nonlocality in the context of noisy three-qubit systems. In the initial phase of the study, sufficient conditions are provided for Alice and Bob to share standard tripartite nonlocality with any number of Charlies, even when measurements are noisy and the initial three-qubit system is in a maximally entangled state with noise. This finding indicates that certain standard tripartite nonlocality can persist under non-ideal conditions as long as certain conditions are met. Moreover, the article elucidates the requisite conditions for multiple independent Charlies to share genuinely nonsignal nonlocality with a pair of Alice and Bob in a non-ideal state. This implies that, despite the presence of noise and errors, this type of genuinely nonsignal nonlocality can still be securely shared among multiple parties as long as specific conditions are met. This provides a new theoretical basis for the security and feasibility of quantum communication. In conclusion, the comprehensive analysis presented in this paper offers insights into the behaviour of triple quantum nonlocality under noiseless conditions.

Mermin's inequalities in Quantum Field Theory

A relativistic Quantum Field Theory framework is devised for Mermin's inequalities. By employing smeared Dirac spinor fields, we are able to introduce unitary operators which create, out of the Minkowski vacuum |0〉, GHZ-type states. In this way, we are able to obtain a relation between the expectation value of Mermin's operators in the vacuum and in the GHZ-type states. We show that Mermin's inequalities turn out to be maximally violated when evaluated on these states.

Bell-type inequalities for systems of relativistic vector bosons

We perform a detailed analysis of the possible violation of various Bell-type inequalities for systems of vector boson-antiboson pairs. Considering the general case of an overall scalar state of the bipartite system, we identify two distinct classes of such states, and determine the joint probabilities of spin measurement outcomes for each them. We calculate the expectation values of the CHSH, Mermin and CGLMP inequalities and find that while the generalised CHSH inequality is not expected to be violated for any of the scalar states, in the case of the Mermin and CGLMP inequalities the situation is different – these inequalities can be violated in certain scalar states while they cannot be violated in others. Moreover, the degree of violation depends on the relative speed of the two particles.

Sharing tripartite nonlocality sequentially by arbitrarily many independent observers

Bipartite entangled states whose violations of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt Bell inequality can be observed by a single Alice and arbitrarily many sequential Bobs exist [Brown and Colbeck, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 090401 (2020)]. Here we consider their analogs for tripartite systems: a tripartite entangled state is shared among Alice, Bob, and multiple Charlies. The first Charlie measures his qubit and then passes his qubit to the next Charlie, who measures again with other measurements, and so on. The goal is to maximize the number of Charlies that can observe some kind of nonlocality with the single Alice and Bob. It has been shown that at most two Charlies can share genuine nonlocality of the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state via the violation of the Svetlichny inequality with Alice and Bob [S. Saha et al., Quantum Inf. Process. 18, 42 (2019); Zhang and Fei, Phys. Rev. A 103, 032216 (2021)]. In this work, we show that arbitrarily many Charlies can have standard nonlocality (via violations of the Mermin inequality) and some other kind of genuine nonlocality (which is known as genuinely nonsignal nonlocality) with a single Alice and single Bob.

Generation of a time–bin Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger state with an optical switch

Multipartite entanglement is a critical resource in quantum information processing that exhibits much richer phenomenon and stronger correlations than in bipartite systems. This advantage is also reflected in its multi-user applications. Although many demonstrations have used photonic polarization qubits, polarization-mode dispersion confines the transmission of photonic polarization qubits through an optical fiber. Consequently, time–bin qubits have a particularly important role to play in quantum communication systems. Here, we generate a three-photon time–bin Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) state using a 2 × 2 optical switch as a time-dependent beam splitter to entangle time–bin Bell states from a spontaneous parametric down-conversion source and a weak coherent pulse. To characterize the three-photon time–bin GHZ state, we performed measurement estimation, showed a violation of the Mermin inequality, and used quantum state tomography to fully reconstruct a density matrix, which shows a state fidelity exceeding 70%. We expect that our three-photon time–bin GHZ state can be used for long-distance multi-user quantum communication.

Minimal scenario facet Bell inequalities for multi-qubit states

Facet inequalities play an important role in detecting the nonlocality of a quantum state. The number of such inequalities depends on the Bell test scenario. With the increase in the number of parties, measurement outcomes, or/and the number of measurement settings, there are more nontrivial facet inequalities. For several Bell scenarios, by involving two dichotomic measurement settings for two parties and one dichotomic measurement by other parties, we show that the local polytope has only one nontrivial facet. For three parties, we have three variants of this inequality, depending upon which party is doing one dichotomic measurement. This measurement scenario for a multipartite state may be considered as the minimal scenario involving multipartite correlations that can detect nonlocality. We show that this inequality is violated by all generalized GHZ states. Being the only facet Bell inequality, this inequality is also violated by any entangled three-qubit pure state. We also show that for noisy [Formula: see text] states, our inequality is more effective than the well-known Mermin inequality.

Mermin and Svetlichny inequalities for non-projective measurement observables

The necessary and sufficient criteria for violating the Mermin and Svetlichny inequalities by arbitrary three-qubit states are presented. Several attempts have been made, earlier, to find such criteria, however, those extant criteria are neither tight for most of the instances, nor fully general. We generalize the existing criteria for Mermin and Svetlichny inequalities which are valid for the local projective measurement observables as well as for the arbitrary ones. We obtain the maximal achievable bounds of the Mermin and Svetlichny operators with unbiased measurement observables for arbitrary three-qubit states and with arbitrary observables for three-qubit states having maximally mixed marginals. We find that for certain ranges of measurement strengths, it is possible to violate Mermin and Svetlichny inequalities only by biased measurement observables. The necessary and sufficient criteria of violating any one of the six possible Mermin and Svetlichny inequalities are also derived.

A note on the trade-off relationships of steering and Bell inequalities and the maximal mean values of Śliwa inequalities

The detection of quantum correlations and the trade-off relationships of correlation resources in multi-partite systems are vitally important in quantum information theory. We present the trade-off relation of any quantum state with respect to the steering inequality and the trade-off relation of generalized Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger state with respect to the Mermin inequality. We also provide a quantitative analysis of the allocation of associated resources in multi-partite quantum systems. Computable formula of the maximal violation of the Śliwa inequality for any three-qubit state is presented.

Revealing hidden standard tripartite nonlocality by local filtering

Quantum nonlocality is a kind of significant quantum correlation that is stronger than quantum entanglement and EPR steering. The standard tripartite nonlocality can be detected by the violation of the Mermin inequality. By using local filtering operations, we give a tight upper bound on the maximal expected value of the Mermin operators. By detailed examples we show that the hidden standard nonlocality can be revealed by local filtering which can enhance the robustness of the noised entangled states.

A method to improve quantum state fidelity in circuits executed on IBM’s quantum computers

Recently, various quantum computing and communication tasks have been implemented using IBM’s superconductivity-based quantum computers. Here, we show that the circuits used in most of those works were not optimized and obtain the corresponding optimized circuits. Optimized circuits implementable in IBM quantum computers are also obtained for a set of reversible benchmark circuits. With a clear example, it is shown that the reduction in circuit cost enhances the fidelity of the output state (with respect to the theoretically expected state in the absence of noise) as fewer gates and less circuit depth introduce fewer errors during evolution of the state. Further, considering Mermin inequality as an example, it is shown that the violation of the classical limit is enhanced when we use optimized circuits. Thus, the present approach can be used to identify a relatively weaker signature of quantumness and to establish quantum supremacy in a stronger manner.

Experimental demonstration of a quantum controlled-SWAP gate with multiple degrees of freedom of a single photon

Optimizing the physical realization of quantum gates is important to build a quantum computer. The controlled-SWAP gate, also named Fredkin gate, can be widely applicable in various quantum information processing schemes. In the present research, we propose and experimentally implement quantum Fredkin gate in a single-photon hybrid-degrees-of-freedom system. Polarization is used as the control qubit, and SWAP operation is achieved in a four-dimensional Hilbert space spanned by photonic orbital angular momentum. The effective conversion rate of the quantum Fredkin gate in our experiment is (95.4 ± 2.6)%. Besides, we find that a kind of Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger-like states can be prepared by using our quantum Fredkin gate, and these nonseparale states can show its quantum contextual characteristic by the violation of Mermin inequality. Our experimental design and coding method are useful for quantum computing and quantum fundamental study in high-dimensional and hybrid coding quantum systems.

Revisiting the Experimental Test of Mermin’s Inequalities at IBMQ

Bell-type inequalities allow for experimental testing of local hidden variable theories. In the present work we show the violation of Mermin's inequalities in IBM's five-qubit quantum computers, ruling out the local realism hypothesis in quantum mechanics. Furthermore, our numerical results show significant improvement with respect to previous implementations. The circuit implementation of these inequalities is also proposed as a way of assessing the reliability of different quantum computers.

Mermin's inequalities of multiple qubits with orthogonal measurements onIBMQ 53‐qubit system

Entanglement properties of IBM Q 53 qubit quantum computer are carefully examined with the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) technology. We study GHZ-like states with multiple qubits (N=2 to N=7) on IBM Rochester and compare their maximal violation values of Mermin polynomials with analytic results. A rule of N-qubits orthogonal measurements is taken to further justify the entanglement less than maximal values of local realism (LR). The orthogonality of measurements is another reliable criterion for entanglement except the maximal values of LR. Our results indicate that the entanglement of IBM 53-qubits is reasonably good when N <= 4 while for the longer entangle chains the entanglement is only valid for some special connectivity.

Operator analysis of contextuality-witness measurements for multimode-entangled single-neutron interferometry

We develop an operator-based description of two types of multimode-entangled single-neutron quantum optical devices: Wollaston prisms and radio-frequency spin flippers in inclined magnetic field gradients. This treatment is similar to the approach used in quantum optics, and is convenient for the analysis of quantum contextuality measurements in certain types of neutron interferometers. We describe operationally the way multimode-entangled single-neutron states evolve in these devices, and provide expressions for the associated operators describing the dynamics, in the limit in which the neutron state space is approximated by a finite tensor product of distinguishable subsystems. We design entangled-neutron interferometers to measure entanglement witnesses for the Clauser, Horne, Shimony and Holt, and Mermin inequalities, and compare the theoretical predictions with recent experimental results. We present the generalization of these expressions to $n$ entangled distinguishable subsystems, which could become relevant in the future if it becomes possible to add neutron orbital angular momentum to the experimentally-accessible list of entangled modes. We view this work as a necessary first step towards a theoretical description of entangled neutron scattering from strongly entangled matter, and we explain why it should be possible to formulate a useful generalization of the usual Van Hove linear response theory for this case. We also briefly describe some other scientific extensions and applications which can benefit from interferometric measurements using the types of single-neutron multimode entanglement described by this analysis.

Quantum correlations in neutrino oscillations in curved spacetime

Gravity induced neutrino-antineutrino oscillations are studied in the context of one and two flavor scenarios. This allows one to investigate the particle-antiparticle correlations in two and four level systems, respectively. Flavor entropy is used to probe the entanglement in the system. The well known witnesses of non-classicality such as Mermin and Svetlichly inequalities are investigated. Since the extent of neutrino-antineutrino oscillation is governed by the strength of the gravitational field, the behavior of non-classicality shows interesting features as one varies the strength of the gravitational field. Specifically, the suppression of the entanglement with the increase of the gravitational field is observed which is witnessed in the form of decrease in the flavor entropy of the system. The features of the Mermin and the Svetlichny inequalities allow one to make statements about the degeneracy of neutrino mass eigenstates.

Device-independent quantum secret sharing in arbitrary even dimensions

We present a device independent quantum secret sharing scheme in arbitrary even dimension. We propose a $d$-dimensional $N$-partite linear game, utilizing a generic multipartite higher dimensional Bell inequality, a generalization of Mermin's inequality in the higher dimension. Probability to win this linear game defines the device independence test of the proposed scheme. The security is proved under causal independence of measurement devices and it is based on the polygamy property of entanglement. By defining $\epsilon_{cor}$-correctness and $\epsilon^c$-completeness for a quantum secret sharing scheme, we have also shown that the proposed scheme is $\epsilon_{cor}$-correct and $\epsilon^c$-complete.

Experimental demonstration of the violations of Mermin’s and Svetlichny’s inequalities for W and GHZ states

Violation of Mermin's and Svetlichny's inequalities can rule out the predictions of local hidden variable theory and can confirm the existence of true nonlocal correlation for n-particle pure quantum systems. Here we demonstrate the experimental violation of the above inequalities for W- and GHZ-class of states. We use IBM's five-qubit quantum computer for experimental implementation of these states and illustration of inequalities' violations. Our results clearly show the violations of both Mermin's and Svetlichny's inequalities for W and GHZ states respectively. Being a superconducting qubit-based quantum computer, the platform used here opens up the opportunity to explore multipartite inequalities which is beyond the reach of other existing technologies.

Tight upper bound for the maximal expectation value of the Mermin operators

The violation of the Mermin inequality (MI) for multipartite quantum states guarantees the existence of nonlocality between either few or all parties. The detection of optimal MI violation is fundamentally important, but current methods only involve numerical optimizations, thus hard to find even for three-qubit states. In this paper, we provide a simple and elegant analytical method to achieve the upper bound of Mermin operator for arbitrary three-qubit states. Also, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the tightness of the bound for some class of tri-partite states has been stated. Finally, we suggest an extension of this result for up to n qubits.