We present a simple categorical framework for the treatment of probabilistic theories, with the aim of reconciling the fields of Categorical Quantum Mechanics (CQM) and Operational Probabilistic Theories (OPTs). In recent years, both CQM and OPTs have found successful application to a number of areas in quantum foundations and information theory: they present many similarities, both in spirit and in formalism, but they remain separated by a number of subtle yet important differences. We attempt to bridge this gap, by adopting a minimal number of operationally motivated axioms which provide clean categorical foundations, in the style of CQM, for the treatment of the problems that OPTs are concerned with.
A central theme in current work in quantum information and quantum foundations is to see quantum mechanics as occupying one point in a space of possible theories, and to use this perspective to understand the special features and properties which single it out, and the possibilities for alternative theories. Two formalisms which have been used in this context are operational theories, and categorical quantum mechanics. The aim of the present paper is to establish strong connections between these two formalisms. We show how models of categorical quantum mechanics have representations as operati…
Many insights into the quantum world can be found by studying it from amongst more general operational theories of physics. In this thesis, we develop an approach to the study of such theories purely in terms of the behaviour of their processes, as described mathematically through the language of category theory. This extends a framework for quantum processes known as categorical quantum mechanics (CQM) due to Abramsky and Coecke. We first consider categorical frameworks for operational theories. We introduce a notion of such theory, based on those of Chiribella, D'Ariano and Perinotti (CDP), …
We derive the category-theoretic backbone of quantum theory from a process ontology. More specifically, we treat quantum theory as a theory of systems, processes and their interactions. In this first part of a three-part overview, we first present a general theory of diagrams, and in particular, of string diagrams. We discuss why diagrams are a very natural starting point for developing scientific theories. Then we define process theories, and define a very general notion of quantum type. We show how our process ontology enables us to assert causality, that is, compatibility of quantum theory …
Mathematical Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences（斯洛伐克科学院数学研究所）；Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, ENS Paris-Saclay, Inria, CentraleSupélec, Laboratoire Méthodes Formelles（巴黎萨克雷大学、法国国家科学研究中心、巴黎高等师范学院、法国国家信息与自动化研究所、中央理工-高等电力学院、形式方法实验室）
Institute of Financial Analysis（金融分析研究所）；Université de Neuchâtel（纳沙泰尔大学）；Università degli Studi di Milano（米兰大学）
This paper presents Sparse Tensor Classifier (STC), a supervised classification algorithm for categorical data inspired by the notion of superposition of states in quantum physics. By regarding an observation as a superposition of features, we introduce the concept of wave-particle duality in machine learning and propose a generalized framework that unifies the classical and the quantum probability. We show that STC possesses a wide range of desirable properties not available in most other machine learning methods but it is at the same time exceptionally easy to comprehend and use. Empirical e…
Intuitionistic logic, in which the double negation law not-not-P = P fails, is dominant in categorical logic, notably in topos theory. This paper follows a different direction in which double negation does hold. The algebraic notions of effect algebra/module that emerged in theoretical physics form the cornerstone. It is shown that under mild conditions on a category, its maps of the form X -> 1+1 carry such effect module structure, and can be used as predicates. Predicates are identified in many different situations, and capture for instance ordinary subsets, fuzzy predicates in a probabilist…
Physical theories can be characterized in terms of their state spaces and their evolutive equations. The kinematical structure and the dynamical structure of finite dimensional quantum theory are, in light of the Choi-Jamiołkowski isomorphism, one and the same --- namely the homogeneous self-dual cones of positive semi-definite linear endomorphisms on finite dimensional complex Hilbert spaces. From the perspective of category theory, these cones are the sets of morphisms in finite dimensional quantum theory as a dagger compact closed category. Understanding the intricate geometry of these cone…
This paper charts a very direct path between the categorical approach to quantum mechanics, due to Abramsky and Coecke, and the older convex-operational approach based on ordered vector spaces (recently reincarnated as "generalized probabilistic theories"). In the former, the objects of a symmetric monoidal category C are understood to represent physical systems and morphisms, physical processes. Elements of the monoid C(I,I) are interpreted somewhat metaphorically as probabilities. Any monoid homomorphism from the scalars of a symmetric monoidal category C gives rise to a covariant functor V_…
Quantum discord quantifies non-classical correlations in quantum states. We introduce discord for states in causal probabilistic theories, inspired by the original definition proposed in Ref. [17]. We show that the only probabilistic theory in which all states have null discord is classical probability theory. Non-null discord is then not just a quantum feature, but a generic signature of non-classicality.
As a part of the construction of an information theory based on general probabilistic theories, we propose and investigate the several distinguishability measures and "entropies" in general probabilistic theories. As their applications, no-cloning theorems, information-disturbance theorems are reformulated, and a bound of the accessible informations is discussed in any general probabilistic theories, not resorting to quantum theory.
In a previous paper, we showed that many important quantum information-theoretic phenomena, including the no-cloning and no-broadcasting theorems, are in fact generic in all non-classical probabilistic theories. An exception is teleportation, which most such theories do not support. In this paper, we investigate which probabilistic theories, and more particularly, which composite systems, {\em do} support a teleportation protocol. We isolate a natural class of composite systems that we term {\em regular}, and establish necessary and sufficient conditions for a regular tripartite system to supp…
The aim of this thesis project is to investigate the bit commitment protocol in the framework of operational probabilistic theories. In particular a careful study is carried on the feasibility of bit commitment in the non-local boxes theory. New aspects of the theory are also presented.
We introduce a new way of quantifying the degrees of incompatibility of two ob- servables in a probabilistic physical theory and, based on this, a global measure of the degree of incompatibility inherent in such theories, across all observable pairs. This opens up a novel and flexible way of comparing probabilistic theories with respect to the nonclassical feature of incompatibility, raising many interesting questions, some of which will be answered here. We show that quantum theory contains observables that are as incompatible as any probabilistic physical theory can have if arbitrary pairs o…
This paper provides a concise summary of the framework of operational-probabilistic theories, aimed at emphasizing the interaction between category-theoretic and probabilistic structures. Within this framework, we review an operational version of the GNS construction, expressed by the so-called purification principle, which under mild hypotheses leads to an operational version of Stinespring's theorem.
We consider optimal state discrimination in a general convex operational framework, so-called generalized probabilistic theories (GPTs), and present a general method of optimal discrimination by applying the complementarity problem from convex optimization. The method exploits the convex geometry of states but not other detailed conditions or relations of states and effects. We also show that properties in optimal quantum state discrimination are shared in GPTs in general: i) no measurement sometimes gives optimal discrimination, and ii) optimal measurement is not unique.
In this article we provide, from a novel perspective, arguments that support the idea that, in the wake of Cox' approach to probability theory, von Neumann's entropy should be the natural one in Quantum Mechanics. We also generalize the pertinent reasoning to more general orthomodular lattices, which reveals the structure of a general non-Boolean information theory.
Gleason-type theorems for quantum theory allow one to recover the quantum state space by assuming that (i) states consistently assign probabilities to measurement outcomes and that (ii) there is a unique state for every such assignment. We identify the class of general probabilistic theories which also admit Gleason-type theorems. It contains theories satisfying the no-restriction hypothesis as well as others which can simulate such an unrestricted theory arbitrarily well when allowing for post-selection on measurement outcomes. Our result also implies that the standard no-restriction hypothes…
General probabilistic theories are designed to provide operationally the most general probabilistic models including both classical and quantum theories. In this letter, we introduce a systematic method to construct a series of entropies, all of which generalize Shannon entropy in classical system and von Neumann entropy in quantum system. Using these entropies, the Holevo bound, an upper bound of the accessible information from a quantum system, is generalized to hold in any general probabilistic theory.
Entropic uncertainty relations play an important role in both fundamentals and applications of quantum theory. Although they have been well-investigated in quantum theory, little is known about entropic uncertainty in generalized probabilistic theories (GPTs). The current study explores two types of entropic uncertainty relations, preparation and measurement uncertainty relations, in a class of GPTs which can be considered generalizations of quantum theory. Not only a method for obtaining entropic preparation uncertainty relations but also an entropic measurement uncertainty relation similar t…
In quantum theory, the no-information-without-disturbance and no-free-information theorems express that those observables that do not disturb the measurement of another observable and those that can be measured jointly with any other observable must be trivial, i.e., coin tossing observables. We show that in the framework of general probabilistic theories these statements do not hold in general and continue to completely specify these two classes of observables. In this way, we obtain characterizations of the probabilistic theories where these statements hold. As a particular class of state sp…
We call a probabilistic theory "complete" if it cannot be further refined by no-signaling hidden-variable models, and name a theory "spooky" if every equivalent hidden-variable model violates Shimony's Outcome Independence. We prove that a complete theory is spooky if and only if it admits a pure steering state in the sense of Schrödinger. Finally we show that steering of complementary states leads to a Schrödinger's cat-like paradox.
Coin-flipping is a fundamental cryptographic task where a spatially separated Alice and Bob wish to generate a fair coin-flip over a communication channel. It is known that ideal coin-flipping is impossible in both classical and quantum theory. In this work, we give a short proof that it is also impossible in generalized probabilistic theories under the Generalized No-Restriction Hypothesis. Our proof relies crucially on a formulation of cheating strategies as semi-infinite programs, i.e., cone programs with infinitely many constraints. This introduces a new formalism which may be of independe…
We investigate a state discrimination problem in operationally the most general framework to use a probability, including both classical, quantum theories, and more. In this wide framework, introducing closely related family of ensembles (which we call a {\it Helstrom family of ensembles}) with the problem, we provide a geometrical method to find an optimal measurement for state discrimination by means of Bayesian strategy. We illustrate our method in 2-level quantum systems and in a probabilistic model with square-state space to reproduce e.g., the optimal success probabilities for binary sta…
We quantify the intrinsic noise content of an observable in a general probabilistic theory and derive a noise content inequality for incompatible observables. We apply the derived inequality to standard quantum theory, the quantum theory of processes, and polytope state spaces. The noise content for positive operator-valued measures takes a particularly simple form and equals the sum of minimal eigenvalues of all the effects. We illustrate our findings with a number of examples including the introduced notion of reverse observables.
It is well-known that pure quantum states are typically almost maximally entangled, and thus have close to maximally mixed subsystems. We consider whether this is true for probabilistic theories more generally, and not just for quantum theory. We derive a formula for the expected purity of a subsystem in any probabilistic theory for which this quantity is well-defined. It applies to typical entanglement in pure quantum states, coin tossing in classical probability theory, and randomization in post-quantum theories; a simple generalization yields the typical entanglement in (anti)symmetric quan…
What singles out quantum mechanics as the fundamental theory of Nature? Here we study local measurements in generalised probabilistic theories (GPTs) and investigate how observational limitations affect the production of correlations. We find that if only a subset of typical local measurements can be made then all the bipartite correlations produced in a GPT can be simulated to a high degree of accuracy by quantum mechanics. Our result makes use of a generalisation of Dvoretzky's theorem for GPTs. The tripartite correlations can go beyond those exhibited by quantum mechanics, however.
We introduce a general framework for analysing general probabilistic theories, which emphasises the distinction between the dynamical and probabilistic structures of a system. The dynamical structure is the set of pure states together with the action of the reversible dynamics, whilst the probabilistic structure determines the measurements and the outcome probabilities. For transitive dynamical structures whose dynamical group and stabiliser subgroup form a Gelfand pair we show that all probabilistic structures are rigid (cannot be infinitesimally deformed) and are in one-to-one correspondence…
We discuss the possibility of creating money that is physically impossible to counterfeit. Of course, "physically impossible" is dependent on the theory that is a faithful description of nature. Currently there are several proposals for quantum money which have their security based on the validity of quantum mechanics. In this work, we examine Wiesner's money scheme in the framework of generalised probabilistic theories. This framework is broad enough to allow for essentially any potential theory of nature, provided that it admits an operational description. We prove that under a quantifiable …
General Probabilistic Theories provide the most general mathematical framework for the theory of probability in an operationally natural manner, and generalize classical and quantum theories. In this article, we study state-discrimination problems in general probabilistic theories using a Bayesian strategy. After re-formulation of the theories with mathematical rigor, we first prove that an optimal observable to discriminate any (finite) number of states always exists in the most general setting. Next, we revisit our recently proposed geometric approach for the problem and show that, for two-s…
We introduce a new approach to the study of operational theories of physics using category theory. We define a generalisation of the (causal) operational-probabilistic theories of Chiribella et al. and establish their correspondence with our new notion of an operational category. Our work is based on effectus theory, a recently developed area of categorical logic, to which we give an operational interpretation, demonstrating its relevance to the modelling of general probabilistic theories.
The holographic transformation, belief propagation and loop calculus are generalized to problems in generalized probabilistic theories including quantum mechanics. In this work, the partition function of classical factor graph is represented by an inner product of two high-dimensional vectors both of which can be decomposed to tensor products of low-dimensional vectors. On the representation, the holographic transformation is clearly understood by using adjoint linear maps. Furthermore, on the formulation using inner product, the belief propagation is naturally defined from the derivation of t…
As a modern approach for the foundation of quantum theory, existing studies of General Probabilistic Theories gave various models of states and measurements that are quite different from quantum theory. In this paper, to seek a more realistic situation, we investigate models approximately close to quantum theory. We define larger measurement classes that are smoothly connected with the class of POVMs via a parameter, and investigate the performance of perfect discrimination. As a result, we give a sufficient condition of perfect discrimination, which shows a significant improvement beyond the …
We define an index of compatibility for a probabilistic theory (PT). Quantum mechanics with index 0 and classical probability theory with index 1 are at the two extremes. In this way, quantum mechanics is at least as incompatible as any PT. We consider a PT called a concrete quantum logic that may have compatibility index strictly between 0 and 1, but we have not been able to show this yet. Finally, we show that observables in a PT can be represented by positive, vector-valued measures.
In this paper, we investigate a characterization of Quantum Mechanics by two physical principles based on general probabilistic theories. We first give the operationally motivated definition of the physical equivalence of states and consider the principle of the physical equivalence of pure states, which turns out to be equivalent to the symmetric structure of the state space. We further consider another principle of the decomposability with distinguishable pure states. We give classification theorems of the state spaces for each principle, and derive the Bloch ball in 2 and 3 dimensional syst…
A class of fermionic quantum field theories with interactions is shown to be equivalent to probabilistic cellular automata, namely cellular automata with a probability distribution for the initial states. Probabilistic cellular automata on a one-dimensional lattice are equivalent to two - dimensional quantum field theories for fermions. They can be viewed as generalized Ising models on a square lattice and therefore as classical statistical systems. As quantum field theories they are quantum systems. Thus quantum mechanics emerges from classical statistics. As an explicit example for an intera…
