Recently, an inequality satisfied by non-contextual hidden-variable models and violated by quantum mechanics for all states of a four-level system has been derived based on information-theoretic distance approach to non-classical correlations. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate violation of this inequality with single photons. Our experiment offers a method to study a distinction between quantum and classical correlations from an information-theoretic perspective.
We study the contextuality of a three-level quantum system using classical conditional entropy of measurement outcomes. First, we analytically construct the minimal configuration of measurements required to reveal contextuality. Next, an entropic contextual inequality is formulated, analogous to the entropic Bell inequalities derived by Braunstein and Caves in [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 61}, 662 (1988)], that must be satisfied by all non-contextual theories. We find optimal measurements for violation of this inequality. The approach is easily extendable to higher dimensional quantum systems and mo…
We introduce a multipartite extension of an information-theoretic distance first introduced in [Nature 341, 119 (1989)]. We use this new distance to derive entropic tests of multipartite nonlocality for three and for an arbitrary even number of qubits as well as a test of state-independent contextuality. In addition, we re-derive the tripartite Mermin inequality and a state-independent non-contextuality inequality by Cabello [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 210401 (2008)]. This suggests that the information-theoretic distance approach to multipartite nonlocality and state-independent contextuality can p…
The celebrated Bell-Kochen-Specker no-go theorem asserts that quantum mechanics does not present the property of realism, the essence of the theorem is the lack of a joint probability distributions for some experiment settings. In this work, we exploit the information theoretic form of the theorem using information measure instead of probabilistic measure and indicate that quantum mechanics does not present such entropic realism neither. The entropic form of Gleason's no-disturbance principle is developed and it turns out to be characterized by the intersection of several entropic cones. Entro…
The information-theoretic approach to Bell's theorem is developed with use of the conditional $q$-entropies. The $q$-entropic measures fulfill many similar properties to the standard Shannon entropy. In general, both the locality and noncontextuality notions are usually treated with use of the so-called marginal scenarios. These hypotheses lead to the existence of a joint probability distribution, which marginalizes to all particular ones. Assuming the existence of such a joint probability distribution, we derive the family of inequalities of Bell's type in terms of conditional $q$-entropies f…
For any Bell locality scenario (or Kochen-Specker noncontextuality scenario), the joint Shannon entropies of local (or noncontextual) models define a convex cone for which the non-trivial facets are tight entropic Bell (or contextuality) inequalities. In this paper we explore this entropic approach and derive tight entropic inequalities for various scenarios. One advantage of entropic inequalities is that they easily adapt to situations like bilocality scenarios, which have additional independence requirements that are non-linear on the level of probabilities, but linear on the level of entrop…
In classical physics, properties of the objects exist independently on the context, i.e. whether and how measurements are performed. Quantum physics showed this assumption to be wrong and that Nature is indeed "contextual". Contextuality has been observed in the simplest physical systems such as single particles, and plays fundamental roles in quantum computation advantage. Here, we demonstrate for the first time quantum contextuality in an integrated photonic chip. The chip implements different combinations of measurements on a single photon delocalized on four distinct spatial modes. We show…
We present a new and feasible test proving quantum contextuality in four-dimensional Hiltbert space. In our scheme, a contradiction between quantum mechanics and noncontextual hidden variables is revealed through the measurement statistics of two joint measurements of an ensemble of non-entangled qubits. The origin of nonclassicality is fully attributed to the measurement process. Quantum optical realization using photon pairs and linear optics are presented.
Entropic Bell inequalities witness contextual probability distributions on sets of jointly measurable observables. We find that their violation does not entail a violation of the correlative Bell inequality for certain parameter values. This anomaly between the entropic and correlative measures of contextuality helps to precisely qualify the type of non-classical resource. We determine its numerical bounds inviting their experimental verification. Among the permutations of observables that keep this anomaly in place, we identify the 'exotic' type that gives rise to non-classical resources unde…
Contextuality is a phenomenon at the heart of the quantum mechanical departure from classical behaviour, and has been recently identified as a resource in quantum computation. Experimental demonstration of contextuality is thus an important goal. The traditional form of contextuality -- as violation of a Kochen-Specker inequality -- requires a quantum system with at least three levels, and the status of the assumption of determinism used in deriving those inequalities has been controversial. By considering `unsharp' observables, Liang, Spekkens and Wiseman (LSW) derived an inequality for gener…
We present an experimental state-independent violation of an inequality for noncontextual theories on single particles. We show that 20 different single-photon states violate an inequality which involves correlations between results of sequential compatible measurements by at least 419 standard deviations. Our results show that, for any physical system, even for a single system, and independent of its state, there is a universal set of tests whose results do not admit a noncontextual interpretation. This sheds new light on the role of quantum mechanics in quantum information processing.
Contextuality provides one of the fundamental characterizations of quantum phenomena, and can be used as a resource in lots of quantum information processing. In this paper, we summarize and derive some equivalent noncontextual inequalities from different noncontextual models of the proofs for Kochen-Specker theorem based on Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states. These noncontextual inequalities are equivalent up to some correlation items which hold both for noncontextual hidden variable theories and quantum mechanics. Therefore, using single-photon hyperentangled Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger stat…
Violations of Bell inequalities have been an incontestable indicator of non-classicality since the seminal paper by John Bell. However, recent claims of Bell inequalities violations with classical light have cast some doubts on their significance as hallmarks of non-classicality. Here, we challenge those claims. The crux of the problem is that such classical experiments simulate quantum probabilities with intensities of classical fields. However, fields intensities measurements are radically different from single-photon detections, which are primitives of any genuine Bell experiment. We show t…
Probe of Generic Quantum Contextuality and Nonlocal Resources for Qubits
Hebei Normal University（河北师范大学）；Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；South China Normal University（华南师范大学）；The University of Hong Kong（香港大学）；Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences（北京量子信息科学研究院）
Banaszek, Wódkiewicz and others (\cite{Banaszek},\cite{Chen},\cite{Chen-Zhang}) made the surprising discovery that Einstein-Bell locality inequalities can be violated by the two mode squeezed vacuum by a factor $\sqrt{2}$, in spite of the fact that the state has a positive Wigner function. I use here the more general Gleason-Kochen-Specker assumption of non-contextuality \cite{Gleason} to express classicality. I then derive non-contextuality Bell inequalities for correlations of $N$ pseudo spins embedded in an infinite dimensional continuous variable Hilbert space, and show that their maximum …
Recent experiments have demonstrated ququart state-independent quantum contextuality and qutrit state-dependent quantum contextuality. So far, the most basic form of quantum contextuality pointed out by Kochen and Specker, and Bell, has eluded experimental confirmation. Here we present an experimentally feasible test to observe qutrit state-independent quantum contextuality using single photons in a three-path setup. In addition, we show that if the same measurements are performed on two entangled qutrits, rather than sequentially on the same qutrit, then the noncontextual inequality becomes a…
Quantum cryptographic protocols based on complementarity are nonsecure against attacks in which complementarity is imitated with classical resources. The Kochen-Specker (KS) theorem provides protection against these attacks, without requiring entanglement or spatially separated composite systems. We analyze the maximum tolerated noise to guarantee the security of a KS-protected cryptographic scheme against these attacks, and describe a photonic realization of this scheme using hybrid ququarts defined by the polarization and orbital angular momentum of single photons.
Contextuality is a fundamental property of quantum theory and a critical resource for quantum computation. Here, we experimentally observe the arguably cleanest form of contextuality in quantum theory [A. Cabello \emph{et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{111}, 180404 (2013)] by implementing a novel method for performing two sequential measurements on heralded photons. This method opens the door to a variety of fundamental experiments and applications.
We report the first state-independent experimental test of quantum contextuality on a single photonic qutrit (three-dimensional system), based on a recent theoretical proposal [Yu and Oh, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 030402 (2012)]. Our experiment spotlights quantum contextuality in its most basic form, in a way that is independent of either the state or the tensor product structure of the system.
We report a method that exploits a connection between quantum contextuality and graph theory to reveal any form of quantum contextuality in high-precision experiments. We use this technique to identify a graph which corresponds to an extreme form of quantum contextuality unnoticed before and test it using high-dimensional quantum states encoded in the linear transverse momentum of single photons. Our results open the door to the experimental exploration of quantum contextuality in all its forms, including those needed for quantum computation.
We uncover a form of quantum contextuality that connects maximal contextuality to boson indistinguihability in a similar way maximal nonlocality with respect to the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt Bell inequality is connected to maximal entanglement. Unlike previous forms of photonic contextuality, this form cannot be simulated with classical light, as it relies on indistinguishability and higher-order interference. Ideal measurements on the bosonic system can be performed by means of dispersive coupling with an ancillary qubit. This allows us delaying at will the ending of each measurement and tar…
On-chip semi-device-independent quantum random number generator exploiting contextuality
Technical University of Denmark（丹麦技术大学）；Queen Mary University of London（伦敦大学玛丽女王学院）；IHP – Leibniz-Institut für innovative Mikroelektronik（IHP – 莱布尼茨创新微电子研究所）；Technische Universität Berlin（柏林工业大学）；University of Florence（佛罗伦萨大学）；QTI s.r.l.（QTI有限公司）
Quantum contextuality is a source of quantum computational power and a theoretical delimiter between classical and quantum structures. It has been substantiated by numerous experiments and prompted generation of state independent contextual sets, that is, sets of quantum observables capable of revealing quantum contextuality for any quantum state of a given dimension. There are two major classes of state-independent contextual sets - the Kochen-Specker ones and the operator-based ones. In this paper, we present a third, hypergraph-based class of contextual sets. Hypergraph inequalities serve a…
Contextuality is considered as an intrinsic signature of non-classicality, and a crucial resource for achieving unique advantages of quantum information processing. However, recently there have been debates on whether classical fields may also demonstrate contextuality. Here we experimentally configure a contextuality test for optical fields, adopting various definitions of measurement events, and analyse how the definitions affect the emergence of non-classical correlations. The heralded single photon state, a typical non-classical light field, manifests contextuality in our setup, while cont…
We investigate the set of qutrit states in terms of symmetric states of two qubits that violate the minimal contextual inequality, namely the Klyachko-Can-Binicoglu-Shumovsky (KCBS) inequality. The physical system that provides a natural framework for this problem is a biphoton which consists of two photons in the same spatio-temporal mode and whose effective polarization behaves as a three-level quantum system. The relationship between the KCBS contextual inequality and the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality is investigated. We find that every biphotonic state that is contextual wit…
An experiment has recently been performed to demonstrate quantum nonlocality by establishing contextuality in one of a pair of photons encoding four qubits; however, low detection efficiencies and use of the fair-sampling hypothesis leave these results open to possible criticism due to the detection loophole. In this Letter, a physically motivated local hidden-variable model is considered as a possible mechanism for explaining the experimentally observed results. The model, though not intrinsically contextual, acquires this quality upon post-selection of coincident detections.
We demonstrate electromagnetic quantum states of single photons and of correlated photon pairs exhibiting "hybrid" entanglement between spin and orbital angular momentum. These states are obtained from entangled photon pairs emitted by spontaneous parametric down conversion, by employing a $q$-plate for coupling the spin and orbital degrees of freedom of a photon. Entanglement and contextual quantum behavior (that is also non-local, in the case of photon pairs) is demonstrated by the reported violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality. In addition a classical analog of the hybrid s…
Contextuality is a foundational phenomenon underlying key differences between quantum theory and classical realistic descriptions of the world. Here we propose an experimental test which is capable of revealing contextuality in all qutrit systems, except the completely mixed state, provided we choose the measurement basis appropriately. The 3-level system is furnished by the polarization and spatial degrees of freedom of a single photon, which encompass three orthogonal modes. Projective measurements along rays in the 3-dimensional Hilbert space are made by linear optical elements and detector…
Using measurements pertaining to a suitable Mach-Zehnder(MZ) type setup, a curious quantum mechanical effect of contextuality between the path and the polarization degrees of freedom of a polarized photon is demonstrated, without using any notion of realism or hidden variables - an effect that holds good for the product as well as the entangled states. This form of experimental context-dependence is manifested in a way such that at \emph{either} of the two exit channels of the MZ setup used, the empirically verifiable \emph{subensemble} statistical properties obtained by an arbitrary polarizat…
We propose a method to experimentally demonstrate contextuality with a family of tests for qudits. The experiment we propose uses a qudit encoded in the path of a single photon and its temporal degrees of freedom. We consider the impact of noise on the effectiveness of these tests, taking the approach of ontologically faithful non-contextuality. In this approach, imperfections in the experimental set up must be taken into account in any faithful ontological (classical) model, which limits how much the statistics can deviate within different contexts. In this way we bound the precision of the e…
Quasiparticle poisoning, expected to arise during the measurement of Majorana zero mode state, poses a fundamental problem towards the realization of Majorana-based quantum computation. Parafermions, a natural generalization of Majorana fermions, can encode topological qudits immune to quasiparticle poisoning. While parafermions are expected to emerge in superconducting fractional quantum Hall systems, they are not yet attainable with current technology. To bypass this problem, we employ a photonic quantum simulator to experimentally demonstrate the key components of parafermion-based universa…
We experimentally observed the violation of Kujula-Dzhafarov noncontextuality inequalities by non-separable spin-orbit laser modes. Qubits are encoded on polarization and transverse modes of an intense laser beam. A spin-orbit non-separable mode was produced by means of a radial polarization converter (S-plate). The results show that contextuality can be investigated by using spin-orbit modes in a simple way, corroborating recent works stating that such system can emulate single-photon experiments. Additionally, an improvement in the non-separable mode preparation allowed us to observe a great…
Random numbers represent an indispensable resource for many applications. A recent remarkable result is the realization that non-locality in quantum mechanics can be used to certify genuine randomness through Bell's theorem, producing reliable random numbers in a device independent way. Here, we explore the contextuality aspect of quantum mechanics and show that true random numbers can be generated using only single qutrit (three-state systems) without entanglement and non-locality. In particular, we show that any observed violation of the Klyachko-Can-Binicioglu-Shumovsky (KCBS) inequality [P…
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. Along this line, some types of hidden variable models have been experimentally ruled out. An intuitive feature for classical models is non-contextuality: the property that any measurement has a value which is independent of other compatible measurements being carried out at the same time. However, the res…
Most of the paradoxical, for the classical intuition, features of quantum theory were formulated for situations which involve a fixed number of particles. While one can now find a formulation of Bell's theorem for quantum fields, a Kochen-Specker-type reasoning is usually formulated for just one particle, or like in the case of Peres-Mermin square for two. A question emerges. Is it possible to formulate a contextuality proof for situation in which the numbers of particles are fundamentally undefined? We address this problem for bosonic fields. We introduce a representation of the $\mathfrak{su…
Quantum contextuality is one of the most perplexing and peculiar features of quantum mechanics. Concisely, it refers to the observation that the result of a single measurement in quantum mechanics depends on the set of joint measurements actually performed. The study of contextuality has a long history at University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). Here we review the theoretical and experimental advances in this direction achieved at USTC over the last 20 years. We start by introducing the renowned simplest proof of state-independent contextuality. We then present several experimenta…
We propose an EPR inequality based on an entropic uncertainty relation for complementary continuous variable observables. This inequality is more sensitive than the previously established EPR inequality based on inferred variances, and opens up the possibility of EPR tests of quantum nonlocality in a wider variety of quantum states. We experimentally test the inequality using spatially entangled photons. For a particular quantum state, our experimental results show a violation of the entropic EPR inequality, while the variance EPR inequality is not violated.
We consider information-theoretic inequalities of the Bell type in the presence of decoherence. It is natural that too strong coupling with the environment can prevent an observation of quantum correlations. In this regard, the use of various entropic functions may give additional capabilities to reveal desired correlations. It was already shown that the Bell and Leggett-Garg inequalities in terms conditional Tsallis entropies are more sensitive in the cases of detection inefficiencies. In this paper, we study capabilities of generalized conditional entropies of the Tsallis type in analyzing t…
A review of the tomographic-probability representation of classical and quantum states is presented. The tomographic entropies and entropic uncertainty relations are discussed in connection with ambiguities in the interpretation of the state tomograms which are considered either as a set of the probability distributions of random variables depending on extra parameters or as a single joint probability distribution of these random variables and random parameters with specific properties of the marginals. Examples of optical tomograms of photon states, symplectic tomograms, and unitary spin tomo…
Why do correlations between the results of measurements performed on physical systems violate Bell and non-contextuality inequalities up to some specific limits? The answer may follow from the observation that in quantum theory, unlike in other theories, whenever there is an experiment to measure $A$ simultaneously with $B$, another to measure $B$ with $C$, and another to measure $A$ with $C$, there is always an experiment to measure all of them simultaneously. This property implies that quantum theory satisfies a seemingly irrelevant restriction called the exclusivity (E) principle which, sur…
We test experimentally the quantum ``paradox'' proposed by Lucien Hardy in 1993 [Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 1665 (1993)] by using single photons instead of photon pairs. This is achieved by addressing two compatible degrees of freedom of the same particle, namely its spin angular momentum, determined by the photon polarization, and its orbital angular momentum, a property related to the optical transverse mode. Because our experiment involves a single particle, we cannot use locality to logically enforce non-contextuality, which must therefore be assumed based only on the observables' compatibility.…
We show how to quantify tri-partite entanglement using entropies derived from experimental correlations. We use a multi-partite generalization of the entanglement of formation that is greater than zero if and only if the state is genuinely multi-partite entangled. We develop an entropic witness for tripartite entanglement, and show that the degree of violation of this witness places a lower limit on the tripartite entanglement of formation. We test our results in the three-qubit regime using the GHZ-Werner state and the W-Werner state, and in the high-dimensional pure-state regime using the tr…
Using entropic inequalities for Shannon entropies new inequalities for some classical polynomials are obtained. To this end, photon distribution functions for one-, two- and multi-mode squeezed states in terms of Hermite, Laguerre, Legendre polynomials and Gauss' hypergeometric functions are used. The dependence between the violation of the quadrature uncertainty relation, the sign and the existence of the distribution function of such states is considered.
Quantum steering describes the phenomenon that one system can be immediately influenced by another with local measurements. It can be detected by the violation of a powerful and useful steering criterion from general entropic uncertainty relation. This criterion, in principle, can be evaluated straightforwardly and achieved by only probability distributions from a finite set of measurement settings. Herein, we experimentally verify the steering criterion by means of the two-photon Werner-like states and three Pauli measurements. The results indicate that quantum steering can be verified by the…
