Bell Inequality Violation Research Articles

Why Bohmian Mechanics? One- and Two-Time Position Measurements, Bell Inequalities, Philosophy, and Physics.

In Bohmian mechanics, particles follow continuous trajectories, so two-time position correlations have been well defined. However, Bohmian mechanics predicts the violation of Bell inequalities. Motivated by this fact, we investigate position measurements in Bohmian mechanics by coupling the particles to macroscopic pointers. This explains the violation of Bell inequalities despite two-time position correlations. We relate this fact to so-called surrealistic trajectories that, in our model, correspond to slowly moving pointers. Next, we emphasize that Bohmian mechanics, which does not distinguish between microscopic and macroscopic systems, implies that the quantum weirdness of quantum physics also shows up at the macro-scale. Finally, we discuss the fact that Bohmian mechanics is attractive to philosophers but not so much to physicists and argue that the Bohmian community is responsible for the latter.

Practical device-independent quantum cryptography via entropy accumulation

Device-independent cryptography goes beyond conventional quantum cryptography by providing security that holds independently of the quality of the underlying physical devices. Device-independent protocols are based on the quantum phenomena of non-locality and the violation of Bell inequalities. This high level of security could so far only be established under conditions which are not achievable experimentally. Here we present a property of entropy, termed “entropy accumulation”, which asserts that the total amount of entropy of a large system is the sum of its parts. We use this property to prove the security of cryptographic protocols, including device-independent quantum key distribution, while achieving essentially optimal parameters. Recent experimental progress, which enabled loophole-free Bell tests, suggests that the achieved parameters are technologically accessible. Our work hence provides the theoretical groundwork for experimental demonstrations of device-independent cryptography.

Device-independent secret-key-rate analysis for quantum repeaters

The device-independent approach to quantum key distribution (QKD) aims to establish a secret key between two or more parties with untrusted devices, potentially under full control of a quantum adversary. The performance of a QKD protocol can be quantified by the secret key rate, which can be lower bounded via the violation of an appropriate Bell inequality in a setup with untrusted devices. We study secret key rates in the device-independent scenario for different quantum repeater setups and compare them to their device-dependent analogon. The quantum repeater setups under consideration are the original protocol by Briegel et al. and the hybrid quantum repeater protocol by van Loock et al.. For a given repeater scheme and a given QKD protocol, the secret key rate depends on a variety of parameters, such as the gate quality or the detector efficiency. We systematically analyze the impact of these parameters and suggest optimized strategies.

Role of Particle Entanglement in the Violation of Bell Inequalities

Entanglement between two separate systems is a necessary resource to violate a Bell inequality in a test of local realism. We demonstrate that to overcome the Bell bound, this correlation must be accompanied by the entanglement between the constituent particles. This happens whenever a super-selection rule prohibits coherences between states with different total number of particles and thus imposes a constraint on feasible local operations in each sub-system. We show that the necessary entanglement between the particles might solely result from their indistinguishability. We also give an example of both mode and particle-entangled pure state, which does not violate any Bell inequality. Our result reveals a fundamental relation between the non-locality and the particle entanglement.

Quantum measurement incompatibility does not imply Bell nonlocality

We discuss the connection between the incompatibility of quantum measurements, as captured by the notion of joint measurability, and the violation of Bell inequalities. Specifically, we present explicitly a given a set of non jointly measurable POVMs $\mathcal{M}_A$ with the following property. Considering a bipartite Bell test where Alice uses $\mathcal{M}_A$, then for any possible shared entangled state $\rho$ and any set of (possibly infinitely many) POVMs $\mathcal{N}_B$ performed by Bob, the resulting statistics admits a local model, and can thus never violate any Bell inequality. This shows that quantum measurement incompatibility does not imply Bell nonlocality in general.

Device-independent certification of two bits of randomness from one entangled bit and Gisin's elegant Bell inequality

We prove that as conjectured by Ac\'{\i}n et al. [Phys. Rev. A 93, 040102(R) (2016)], two bits of randomness can be certified in a device-independent way from one bit of entanglement using the maximal quantum violation of Gisin's elegant Bell inequality. This suggests a surprising connection between maximal entanglement, complete sets of mutually unbiased bases, and elements of symmetric informationally complete positive operator-valued measures, on one side, and the optimal way of certifying maximal randomness, on the other.

Quantum States with a Positive Partial Transpose are Useful for Metrology.

We show that multipartite quantum states that have a positive partial transpose with respect to all bipartitions of the particles can outperform separable states in linear interferometers. We introduce a powerful iterative method to find such states. We present some examples for multipartite states and examine the scaling of the precision with the particle number. Some bipartite examples are also shown that possess an entanglement very robust to noise. We also discuss the relation of metrological usefulness to Bell inequality violation. We find that quantum states that do not violate any Bell inequality can outperform separable states metrologically. We present such states with a positive partial transpose, as well as with a nonpositive partial transpose.

Two methods for measuring Bell nonlocality via local unitary invariants of two-qubit systems in Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometers

We describe a direct method to experimentally determine local two-qubit invariants by performing interferometric measurements on multiple copies of a given two-qubit state. We use this framework to analyze two different kinds of two-qubit invariants of Makhlin and Jing et. al. These invariants allow to fully reconstruct any two-qubit state up to local unitaries. We demonstrate that measuring 3 invariants is sufficient to find, e.g., the optimal Bell inequality violation. These invariants can be measured with local or nonlocal measurements. We show that the nonlocal strategy that follows from Makhlin's invariants is more resource-efficient than local strategy following from the invariants of Jing et al. To measure all of the Makhlin's invariants directly one needs to use both two-qubit singlet and three-qubit W-state projections on multiple copies of the two-qubit state. This problem is equivalent to a cordinate system handness measurement. We demonstrate that these 3-qubit measurements can be performed by utilizing Hong-Ou-Mandel interference which gives significant speedup in comparison to the classical handness measurement. Finally, we point to potential application of our results in quantum secret sharing.

Towards Device-Independent Information Processing on General Quantum Networks.

The violation of certain Bell inequalities allows for device-independent information processing secure against nonsignaling eavesdroppers. However, this only holds for the Bell network, in which two or more agents perform local measurements on a single shared source of entanglement. To overcome the practical constraints that entangled systems can only be transmitted over relatively short distances, large-scale multisource networks have been employed. Do there exist analogs of Bell inequalities for such networks, whose violation is a resource for device independence? In this Letter, the violation of recently derived polynomial Bell inequalities will be shown to allow for device independence on multisource networks, secure against nonsignaling eavesdroppers.

Quantum Local Causality in Non-Metric Space

The possibility that quantum mechanics is founded on non-metric space has been previously introduced as an alternative consequence of Bell inequalities violation. This work develops the concept further by an analysis of the iconic Heisenberg gedanken experiment. No lower bound is found in the gedanken uncertainly relation for a non-metric spatial background. This result has the fundamental consequence that the quantum particle trajectory is retained in non-metric space and time. Assignment of measurement number-values to unmeasured incompatible variables is found to be mathematically incorrect. The current disagreement between different formulations of the empirically verified error-disturbance relations can be explained as a consequence of the structure of space. Quantum contextuality can likewise be explained geometrically. An alternative analysis of the extendedEPRperfect anti-correlation configuration is given. The consensus that local causality is the sole assumption is found to be incorrect. There is also the additional assumption of orientation independence. Inequalities violation does not therefore mandate rejection of local causality. Violation of the assumption of orientation independence implies rejection of metric, non-contextual variables algebraically representing physical quantities.

Bell Inequality and Its Application to Cosmology

One of the cornerstones of inflationary cosmology is that primordial density fluctuations have a quantum mechanical origin. However, most physicists consider that such quantum mechanical effects disappear in CMB data due to decoherence. In this conference report, we show that the violation of Bell inequalities in an initial state of our universe increases exponentially with the number of modes to measure in inflation. This indicates that some evidence that our universe has a quantum mechanical origin may survive in CMB data, even if quantum entanglement decays exponentially afterward due to decoherence.

Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering and Bell nonlocality of two macroscopic mechanical oscillators in optomechanical systems

We investigate under which conditions quantum nonlocal manifestations as Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering or Bell nonlocality can manifest themselves even at the macroscopic level of two mechanical resonators in optomechanical systems. We adopt the powerful scheme of reservoir engineering, implemented by driving a cavity mode with a properly chosen two-tone field, to prepare two mechanical oscillators into an entangled state. We show that large and robust (both one-way and two-way) steering could be achieved in the steady state with realistic parameters. We analyze the mechanism of the asymmetric nature of steering in our system of two-mode Gaussian state. However, unlike steering, Bell nonlocality is present under much more stringent conditions. We consider two types of measurements, displaced parity and on-off detection, respectively. We show that for both the measurements Bell violation requires very low environmental temperature. For the parity detection, large Bell violation is observed only in the transient state when the mechanical modes decouple from the optical mode and with extremely small cavity losses and mechanical damping. Whereas for the on-off detection, moderate Bell violation is found in the steady state and robust against cavity losses and mechanical damping. Although Bell violation with the parity detection seems extremely challenging to be experimentally demonstrated, the conditions required for violating Bell inequalities with the on-off detection are much less demanding.

Violation of Bell inequalities for arbitrary-dimensional bipartite systems

In this paper, we consider the violation of Bell inequalities for quantum system \(\mathbb {C}^K\otimes \mathbb {C}^K\) (integer \(K\ge 2\)) with group theoretical method. For general M possible measurements, and each measurement with K outcomes, the Bell inequalities based on the choice of two orbits are derived. When the observables are much enough, the quantum bounds are only dependent on M and approximate to the classical bounds. Moreover, the corresponding nonlocal games with two different scenarios are analyzed.

Improved quantum randomness amplification with finite number of untrusted devices based on a novel extractor**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61775185).

Quantum randomness amplification protocols have increasingly attracted attention for their fantastic ability to amplify weak randomness to almost ideal randomness by utilizing quantum systems. Recently, a realistic noise-tolerant randomness amplification protocol using a finite number of untrusted devices was proposed. The protocol has the composable security against non-signalling eavesdroppers and could produce a single bit of randomness from weak randomness sources, which is certified by the violation of certain Bell inequalities. However, the protocol has a non-ignorable limitation on the min-entropy of independent sources. In this paper, we further develop the randomness amplification method and present a novel quantum randomness amplification protocol based on an explicit non-malleable two independent-source randomness extractor, which could remarkably reduce the above-mentioned specific limitation. Moreover, the composable security of our improved protocol is also proposed. Our results could significantly expand the application range for practical quantum randomness amplification, and provide a new insight on the practical design method for randomness extraction.

Multipartite quantum correlations in the extended J1–J2 Heisenberg model

Multipartite entanglement and the maximum violation of Bell inequalities are studied in finite clusters of spins in an extended J1–J2 Heisenberg model at zero temperature. The ensuing highly frustrated states will unveil a rich structure for different values of the corresponding spin–spin interaction strengths. The interplay between nearest-neighbors, next-nearest neighbors and further couplings will be explored using multipartite correlations. The model is relevant to certain quantum annealing computation architectures where an all-to-all connectivity is considered.

Infinite violation of Bell inequalities in inflation

We study the violation of Bell-Mermin-Klyshko (BMK) inequalities in initial quantum states of scalar fields in inflation. We show that the Bell inequality is maximally violated by the Bunch-Davies vacuum which is a two-mode squeezed state of a scalar field. However, we find that the violation of the BMK inequalities does not increase with the number of modes to measure. We then consider a non-Bunch-Davies vacuum expressed by a four-mode squeezed state of two scalar fields. Remarkably, we find that the violation of the BMK inequalities increases exponentially with the number of modes to measure. This indicates that some evidence that our universe has a quantum mechanical origin may survive in CMB data even if quantum entanglement decays exponentially afterward due to decoherence.

Full Bell locality of a noisy state for N ⩾ 3 nonlocally entangled qudits

Bounds, expressed in terms of d and on full Bell locality of a quantum state for nonlocally entangled qudits (of a dimension ) mixed with white noise are known, to our knowledge, only within full separability of this noisy N-qudit state. For the maximal violation of general Bell inequalities by an N-partite quantum state, we specify the analytical upper bound expressed in terms of dilation characteristics of this state, and this allows us to find new general bounds in valid for all and all on full Bell locality under generalized quantum measurements of (i) the N-qudit GHZ state mixed with white noise and (ii) an arbitrary N-qudit state mixed with white noise. The new full Bell locality bounds are beyond the known ranges for full separability of these noisy N-qudit states.

Multipartite quantum correlations among atoms in QED cavities

We study the nonlocality dynamics for two models of atoms in cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED); the first model contains atoms in a single cavity undergoing nearest-neighbor interactions with no initial correlation, and the second contains atoms confined in n different and noninteracting cavities, all of which were initially prepared in a maximally correlated state of n qubits corresponding to the atomic degrees of freedom. The nonlocality evolution of the states in the second model shows that the corresponding maximal violation of a multipartite Bell inequality exhibits revivals at precise times, defining, nonlocality sudden deaths and nonlocality sudden rebirths, in analogy with entanglement. These quantum correlations are provided analytically for the second model to make the study more thorough. Differences in the first model regarding whether the array of atoms inside the cavity is arranged in a periodic or open fashion are crucial to the generation or redistribution of quantum correlations. This contribution paves the way to using the nonlocality multipartite correlation measure for describing the collective complex behavior displayed by slightly interacting cavity QED arrays.

Towards quantum communications in free-space seawater.

Long-distance quantum channels capable of transferring quantum states faithfully for unconditionally secure quantum communication have been so far confirmed to be feasible in both fiber and free-space air. However, it remains unclear whether seawater, which covers more than 70% of the earth, can also be utilized, leaving global quantum communication incomplete. Here we experimentally demonstrate that polarization quantum states including general qubits of single photon and entangled states can survive well after travelling through seawater. We perform experiments with seawater collected over a range of 36 kilometers in the Yellow Sea. For single photons at 405 nm in a blue-green window, we obtain an average process fidelity above 98%. For entangled photons at 810nm, albeit very high loss, we observe the violation of Bell inequality with 33 standard deviations. Our results confirm the feasibility of a seawater quantum channel, representing the first step towards underwater quantum communication.

Dynamics of Bell-nonlocality and entanglement in a ring cavity induced by spontaneous emission

By considering the spatial motion of the atoms, we study the time evolution of Bell nonlocality and entanglement of a pair of atoms for two kinds of Werner-type internal states in an ideal single-mode ring cavity. We have proved that both Bell nonlocality and entanglement have the phenomena of sudden death and sudden birth for the initial state W±′, while for the initial state W±, Bell nonlocality has the phenomenon of sudden death, but entanglement decays to zero asymptotically over time. We also notice that the preservation of Bell-inequality violation is much shorter than that of entanglement. In addition, it is shown that the disentanglement time and the Bell-inequality violation time both depend on the purity and the width of the wave packet describing the motion of the atomic center of mass.