The Leggett inequality is a constraint on the bipartite correlation that admits certain types of non-localities. Existing tests mainly focused on the electromagnetic systems where measurement apparatus are assumed to be projective and sharp. However, in nature there are interactions that do not obey the same conservation laws for photon, and the actual measurements may subject to unavoidable uncertainties due to the fundamental physical principles. In this work, we generalize the Leggett inequality to incorporate the measurements that are unsharp and/or biased. It is found that the parity violation in nature provides a spontaneous implementation of an unsharp measurement for the spin of hyperon. A fine structured Leggett inequality for hyperon decays characterized by the asymmetry parameters is obtained and its violation is found which could be observed with the yet obtained data in experiment, like BESIII and Belle.
The Leggett-Garg inequality, an analogue of Bell's inequality involving correlations of measurements on a system at different times, stands as one of the hallmark tests of quantum mechanics against classical predictions. The phenomenon of neutrino oscillations should adhere to quantum-mechanical predictions and provide an observable violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality. We demonstrate how oscillation phenomena can be used to test for violations of the classical bound by performing measurements on an ensemble of neutrinos at distinct energies, as opposed to a single neutrino at distinct tim…
Leggett-Garg Inequality~(LGI) is a time analogue of Bell's inequality that concerns measurements performed on a system at different times. Violation to LGI indicates quantum coherence. We present a Leggett-Garg-type inequality compatible with more general neutrino oscillation frameworks, allowing the effects of decoherence to be taken into consideration. The inequality is applied to test coherence for data from Daya Bay, MINOS, and KamLAND experiments, and their results are compared to theoretical predictions to investigate decoherence. Both Daya Bay and MINOS data exhibit clear violations of …
It is shown here that Suarez [Found. Phys. 38, 583 (2008)] wrongly presents the assumptions behind the Leggett's inequalities, and their modified form used by Groeblacher et al. [Nature 446, 871 (2007)] for an experimental falsification of a certain class of non-local hidden variable models.
The present work is devoted to the characterization of the Leggett-Garg inequality for three-flavoured neutrino oscillations in presence of both matter and Charge-Conjugation and Parity violating (CP) effects. This study complements and completes the recent one put forward in [17] by relaxing the stationary condition. At variance with the latter case, the LGI contains interference terms which cannot be expressed in terms of experimentally measurable quantities, thus drawing a clear-cut distinction between the two scenarios, as well as highlighting the role of the stationary assumption on such …
Neutrino oscillations occur due to non-zero masses and mixings and most importantly they are believed to maintain quantum coherence even over astrophysical length scales. In the present study, we explore the quantumness of three flavour neutrino oscillations by studying the extent of violation of Leggett-Garg inequalities (LGI) if non-standard interactions are taken into account. We report an enhancement in violation of LGI with respect to the standard scenario for appropriate choice of NSI parameters.
Leggett formulated an inequality which seems to generalize the Bell theorem to non-local hidden variable theories. Leggett inequality is violated by quantum mechanics, as was confirmed by experiment. However, a careful analysis reveals that the theory applies to a class of local theory. Contrary to what happens in the derivation of Bell inequality, it is not necessary to make the hypothesis of outcome independence to derive the Leggett inequality.
Leggett-type nonlocal realist inequalities that have been derived to date are all contingent upon suitable geometrical constraints to be strictly satisfied by the spatial arrangement of the relevant measurement settings. This undesirable restriction is removed in the present work by deriving appropriate forms of nonlocal realist inequalities, one of which involve the least number of settings compared to all such inequalities derived earlier. The way such inequalities would provide a logically firmer basis for a clearer testing of Leggett-type nonlocal realist model vis-a-vis quantum mechanics …
In contrast to Bell's inequalities which test the correlations between multiple spatially separated systems, the Leggett-Garg inequalities test the temporal correlations between measurements of a single system. We experimentally demonstrate the violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality in a classical optical system using only the polarization degree-of-freedom of a laser beam. Our results show maximal violations of the Leggett-Garg inequality.
The before-before experiment demonstrates free will acting from outside space-time. The experimental violation of the Leggett's inequality supports the view that it is not appropriate to attempt to limit this freedom in Nature by forcing it to mimic classical features.
The Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) as a temporal analogue of Bell's inequality, derived using the notion of realism, is applied in a hitherto unexplored context involving the weak interaction induced two-state oscillations of decaying neutral kaons and neutrinos. The maximum violation of LGI obtained from the quantum mechanical results is significantly higher for the oscillating neutrinos compared to that for the kaons. Interestingly, the effect of CP non-invariance for the kaon oscillation is to enhance this violation while, for neutrinos, it is sensitive to the value of the mixing parameter.
It is shown that the before-before (or Suarez-Scarani) experiment refutes hidden variable models with a deterministic ("realistic") nonlocal part, and the experimental violation of Leggett-type inequalities models with a random nonlocal part and a biased random local one. Therefore the claim that Groeblacher et al. present "an experimental test of nonlocal realism" [Nature, 446, 871-875 (2007)] is misleading, and Marek Zukowski's comment [arXiv:0809.0072v1] misses the point. A new experiment is proposed.
We consider maximal violations of the Leggett-Garg inequality, obtained by maximising over all possible measurement operators, in relation to non-unitary aspects of the system dynamics. We model the action of an environment on a qubit in terms of generic quantum channels and relate the maximal value of the Leggett-Garg correlator to the channel parameters. We focus on unital channels, and hence on decoherence. In certain important cases, exact relations between the channel parameters and maximal violations can be found. Moreover, we demonstrate the existence of distinct thresholds for the chan…
Bell's inequality is established based on local realism. The violation of Bell's inequality by quantum mechanics implies either locality or realism or both are untenable. Leggett's inequality is derived based on nonlocal realism. The violation of Leggett's inequality implies that quantum mechanics is neither local realistic nor nonlocal realistic. The incompatibility of nonlocal realism and quantum mechanics has been urrently confirmed by photon experiments. In our work, we propose to test Leggett's inequality using the Aharonov-Casher effect. In our scheme, four entangled particles emitted fr…
I impose previously neglected symmetry conditions in Leggett's non-local hidden variable theory that are required by the conditions in a recent experimental test of this theory. These conditions lead to an inequality for the polarization correlation function that has a maximal violation from the quantum predictions that is 2.5 times larger than reported in this article. Furthermore, when these symmetry conditions are applicable, Leggett's non-local theory also cannot model the observed quantum correlations in previous experiments.
By weakly measuring the polarization of a photon between two strong polarization measurements, we experimentally investigate the correlation between the appearance of anomalous values in quantum weak measurements, and the violation of realism and non-intrusiveness of measurements. A quantitative formulation of the latter concept is expressed in terms of a Leggett-Garg inequality for the outcomes of subsequent measurements of an individual quantum system. We experimentally violate the Leggett-Garg inequality for several measurement strengths. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrate that ther…
Investigation the boundary between quantum mechanical description and classical realistic view is of fundamental importance. The Leggett-Garg inequality provides a criterion to distinguish between quantum systems and classical systems, and can be used to prove the macroscopic superposition state. A larger upper bound of the LG function can be obtained in a multi-level system. Here, we present an experimental violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality in a three-level system using nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond by ideal negative result measurement. The experimental maximum value of Leggett-Ga…
We realise a quantum three-level system with photons distributed among three different spatial and polarization modes. Ambiguous measurement of the state of the qutrit are realised by blocking one out for the three modes at any one time. Using these measurements we construct a test of a Leggett-Garg inequality as well as tests of no-signalling-in-time for the measurements. We observe violations of the Leggett-Garg inequality that can not be accounted for in terms of signalling. Moreover, we tailor the qutrit dynamics such that both ambiguous and unambiguous measurements are simultaneously non-…
Quantum mechanics presents peculiar properties that, on the one hand, have been the subject of several theoretical and experimental studies about its very foundations and, on the other hand, provide tools for developing new technologies, the so-called quantum technologies. The nonclassicality pointed out by Leggett-Garg inequalities has represented, with Bell inequalities, one of the most investigated subject. In this letter we study the connection of Leggett-Garg inequalities with a new emerging field of quantum measurement, the weak values. In particular, we perform an experimental study of …
We consider a macroscopic quantum system in a tilted double-well potential. By solving Hamiltonian equation, we obtain tunneling probabilities which contain oscillation effects. To show how one can decide between quantum mechanics and the implications of macrorealism assumption, a given form of Leggett-Garg inequality is used. The violation of this inequality occurs for a broader range of decoherence effects, compared to previous results obtained for two-level systems.
We consider temporal correlations of particles with arbitrary spin. We show that the Leggett-Garg inequality can be maximally violated irrespective of the value of spin, thus improving upon an earlier result by Kofler and Brukner [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{99}, 180403 (2007)]. Our proof is accomplished through a suitable adoption of a measurement scheme which has previously been employed for studying the spatial correlation in a system with arbitrary spin. We next consider generalized or unsharp measurements as a method for coarse graining in a quantitative manner, and show that classicality em…
Leggett-type inequalities for testing nonlocal realism in multipartite systems
School of Physics, Shandong University（山东大学物理学院）；Wilczek Quantum Center, School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学物理与天文学院吴健雄量子中心）；Key Laboratory of Vacuum Physics, CAS（中国科学院真空物理重点实验室）；School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学物理科学学院）
Three flavoured neutrino oscillations are investigated in the light of the Leggett-Garg inequality. The outline of an experimental proposal is suggested whereby the findings of this investigation may be verified. The results obtained are: (a) The maximum violation of the Leggett Garg Inequality (LGI) is $2.17036$ for neutrino path length $L_{1}=140.15 $ Km and $ΔL=1255.7 $ Km.(b) Presence of the mixing angle $θ_{13}$ enhances the maximum violation of LGI by $4.6\%$.(c) The currently known mass hierarchy parameter $α= 0.0305$ increases the the maximum violation of LGI by $3.7\%$. (d)Presence of…
We consider the violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality in electronic Mach-Zehnder inteferometers. This set-up has two distinct advantages over earlier quantum-transport proposals: firstly, the required correlation functions can be obtained without time-resolved measurements. Secondly, the geometry of an interferometer allows one to construct the correlation functions from ideal negative measurements, which addresses the non-invasiveness requirement of the Leggett-Garg inequality. We discuss two concrete realisations of these ideas: the first in quantum Hall edge-channels, the second in a dou…
We investigate the three-term Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) for a two-level quantum system undergoing parity-time (PT ) symmetric dynamics governed by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, when a sequence of dichotomic projective measurements are carried out at different time intervals. In contrast to the case of coherent unitary dynamics, violation of LGI is shown to increase beyond the temporal Tsirelson bound approaching the algebraic maximum in the limit of the spontaneous PT symmetry breaking
An implementation of weak values is investigated in solid-state qubits. We demonstrate that a weak value can be non-classical if and only if a Leggett-Garg inequality can also be violated. Generalized weak values are described, where post-selection on a range of weak measurement results. Imposing classical weak values permits the derivation of Leggett-Garg inequalities for bounded operators. Our analysis is presented in terms of kicked quantum nondemolition measurements on a quantum double-dot charge qubit.
In the cryptographic context, an earlier unexplored application of the temporal version of the Bell-type inequality is shown here in the device-independent (DI) scenario. This is done by using the Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) to demonstrate the security against eavesdropping in a quantum key distribution (QKD) scheme. This typically involves a higher dimensional attack against which the standard BB84 protocol is insecure. For this purpose, we invoke an appropriate form of LGI. While the key generation is done by the usual Bennett-Brassard 1984 (BB84) method, the security check against device …
By combining the postulates of macrorealism with Bell locality, we derive a qualitatively different hybrid inequality that avoids two loopholes that commonly appear in Leggett-Garg and Bell inequalities. First, locally invasive measurements can be used, which avoids the "clumsiness" Leggett-Garg inequality loophole. Second, a single experimental ensemble with fixed analyzer settings is sampled, which avoids the "disjoint sampling" Bell inequality loophole. The derived hybrid inequality has the same form as the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt Bell inequality; however, its quantum violation intriguin…
Bell's theorem states that no local hidden variable model is compatible with quantum mechanics. Surprisingly, even if we release the locality constraint, certain nonlocal hidden variable models, such as the one proposed by Leggett, may still be at variance with the predictions of quantum physics. Here, we report an experimental test of Leggett's nonlocal model with solid-state spins in a diamond nitrogen-vacancy center. We entangle an electron spin with a surrounding weakly coupled $^{13}C$ nuclear spin and observe that the entangled states violate Leggett-type inequalities by more than four a…
The Leggett-Garg inequalities impose restrictions on the values taken by some combinations of the two-time correlation functions of observables in order to be explainable by a noninvasive-realist classical model. While in the unitary dynamics, it is straightforward to compute these correlation functions, open system effects bring in subtleties. Specifically, for non-Markovian dynamics, which involves setting up of system-bath correlations, the Leggett-Garg measurements disrupt these correlations, making a full system-bath Hamiltonian approach natural. However, here we point out that the proble…
Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) studies the temporal correlation in the evolution of physical systems. Classical systems obey the LGI but quantum systems may violate it. The extent of the violation depends on the dimension of the quantum system and the state update rule. In this work, we experimentally test the LGI in a three-level trapped-ion system under the model of a large spin precessing in a magnetic field. The Von Neumann and Lüders state update rules are employed in our system for direct comparative analysis. The maximum observed value of Leggett-Garg correlator under the Von Neumann sta…
We show how to apply the Leggett-Garg inequality to opto-electro-mechanical systems near their quantum ground state. We find that by using a dichotomic quantum non-demolition measurement (via, e.g., an additional circuit-QED measurement device) either on the cavity or on the nanomechanical system itself, the Leggett-Garg inequality is violated. We argue that only measurements on the mechanical system itself give a truly unambigous violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality for the mechanical system. In this case, a violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality indicates physics beyond that of "macros…
Elitzur and Vaidman have proposed a measurement scheme that, based on the quantum superposition principle, allows one to detect the presence of an object --- in a dramatic scenario, a bomb --- without interacting with it. It was pointed out by Ghirardi that this interaction-free measurement scheme can be put in direct relation with falsification tests of the macro-realistic worldview. Here we have implemented the "bomb test" with a single atom trapped in a spin-dependent optical lattice to show explicitly a violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality --- a quantitative criterion fulfilled by macr…
We show that the quantum bound for temporal correlations in a Leggett-Garg test, analogous to the Tsirelson bound for spatial correlations in a Bell test, strongly depends on the number of levels $N$ that can be accessed by the measurement apparatus via projective measurements. We provide exact bounds for small $N$, that exceed the known bound for the Leggett-Garg inequality, and show that in the limit $N\rightarrow \infty$ the Leggett-Garg inequality can be violated up to its algebraic maximum.
The Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) distinguishes nonmacrorealistic channels from macrorealistic ones by constraining the experimental outcomes of the underlying system. In this work, we propose a class of channels which, initially, cannot violate the LGI (in the form of the temporal Bell inequality) but can violate it after the application of stochastic pre- and post- operations (SPPOs). As a proof-of-principle experiment, we demonstrate the stochastic pre- and post- operations in an amplitude-damping channel with photonic qubits. We denote the above phenomenon as hidden nonmacrorealistic chann…
A kicked quantum nondemolition measurement is introduced, where a qubit is weakly measured by pumping current. Measurement statistics are derived for weak measurements combined with single qubit unitary operations. These results are applied to violate a generalization of Leggett and Garg's inequality. The violation is related to the failure of the noninvasive detector assumption, and may be interpreted as either intrinsic detector backaction, or the qubit entangling the microscopic detector excitations. The results are discussed in terms of a quantum point contact kicked by a pulse generator, …
In 1862, George Boole derived an inequality for variables, now known as Boolean variables, that in his opinion represents a demarcation line between possible and impossible experience. This inequality forms an important milestone in the epistemology of probability theory and probability measures. In 1985 Leggett and Garg derived a physics related inequality, mathematically identical to Boole's, that according to them represents a demarcation between macroscopic realism and quantum mechanics. Their formalism, constructed for the magnetic flux of SQUIDS, includes general features and applies als…
Neutrinos, due to their weakly interacting nature, provide us with a unique opportunity to test foundations of quantum mechanics over macroscopic distances. There has been considerable theoretical and experimental interest in examining the extent of violation of Leggett-Garg inequalities (LGI) in the context of neutrino flavour oscillations. While it is established that neutrino oscillations occur due to mass and mixing among the three generations of neutrinos, sub-dominant effects due to physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) are not yet ruled out. As we are entering the precision era in neut…
The Leggett-Garg inequality is a widely used test of the "quantumness" of a system, and involves correlations between measurements realized at different times. According to its widespread interpretation, a violation of the Legget-Garg inequality disproofs macroscopic realism and non-invasiveness. Nevertheless, recent results point out that macroscopic realism is a model dependent notion and that one should always be able to attribute to invasiveness a violation of a Legget-Garg inequality. This opens some natural questions: how to provide such an attribution in a systematic way? How can appare…
We show how to realize a single-photon Dicke state in a large one-dimensional array of two- level systems, and discuss how to test its quantum properties. Realization of single-photon Dicke states relies on the cooperative nature of the interaction between a field reservoir and an array of two-level-emitters. The resulting dynamics of the delocalized state can display Rabi-like oscillations when the number of two-level emitters exceeds several hundred. In this case the large array of emitters is essentially behaving like a mirror-less cavity. We outline how this might be realized using a multi…
Quantum theory predicts and experiments confirm that nature can produce correlations between distant events that are nonlocal in the sense of violating a Bell inequality. Nevertheless, Bell's strong sentence {\it Correlations cry out for explanations} remains relevant. The maturing of quantum information science and the discovery of the power of nonlocal correlations, e.g. for cryptographic key distribution beyond the standard Quantum Key Distribution schemes, strengthen Bell's wish and make it even more timely. In 2003, Leggett proposed an alternative model for nonlocal correlations [Found. P…
The Leggett and Garg Inequality (LGI) is a test of the classical behaviour of an observed system, in the case of a single measurement channel monitored at different times. Here we report LGI violation in cognitive tasks consisting in the identification of mutually incompatible words with negligible semantic content; the violation is maximal at an inter-measurement time τLG around 2 sec, close to, but consistently lower than, the characteristic times associated with other, semantically rich, linguistic endeavors. The LGI violation persists over a time window of 1 sec around τLG; outside this wi…
The Leggett-Garg inequality holds for any macrorealistic system that is being measured noninvasively. A violation of the inequality can signal that a system does not conform to our primal intuition about the physical world. Alternatively, a violation can simply indicate that "clumsy" experimental technique led to invasive measurements. Here, we consider a recent Leggett-Garg test designed to try to rule out the mundane second possibility. We tailor this Leggett-Garg test to the IBM 5Q Quantum Experience system and find compelling evidence that qubit $Q_2$ of the system cannot be described by n…
We investigate how discrete internal degrees of freedom in a quasi-macroscopic system affect the violation of the Leggett--Garg inequality, a test of macroscopic-realism based on temporal correlation functions. As a specific example, we focus on an ensemble of qubits subject to collective and individual noise. This generic model can describe a range of physical systems, including atoms in cavities, electron or nuclear spins in NV centers in diamond, erbium in Y$_2$SiO$_5$, bismuth impurities in silicon, or arrays of superconducting circuits, to indicate but a few. Such large ensembles are pote…
Weak measurement has provided new insight into the nature of quantum measurement, by demonstrating the ability to extract average state information without fully projecting the system. For single qubit measurements, this partial projection has been demonstrated with violations of the Leggett-Garg inequality. Here we investigate the effects of weak measurement on a maximally entangled Bell state through application of the Hybrid Bell-Leggett-Garg inequality (BLGI) on a linear chain of four transmon qubits. By correlating the results of weak ancilla measurements with subsequent projective readou…
Wigner's form of the local realist inequality is used to derive its temporal version for an oscillating two-level system involving two-time joint probabilities. Such an inequality may be regarded as a novel form of the Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) constituting a necessary condition for macrorealism. The robustness of its quantum mechanical (QM) violation against unsharpness of measurement is investigated by using a suitable model of unsharp measurements. It is found that there exists a range of values of the sharpness parameter (characterizing precision of the relevant measurements) for which…
Nonclassicality of temporal correlations pertaining to noncommutative sequential measurements is defined through the violation of macrorealistic inequalities, known as Leggett-Garg inequalities (LGI). We investigate the energy cost of the process associated with the Leggett-Garg test in the context of noiseless and Markovian noise for arbitrary initial states. We prove that in noiseless and in certain noisy scenarios, the maximal violations of LGI under the energy constraint occurs when the average energy of the process is equal to the negative of the energy of the initial state. Such a depend…
We investigate both analytically and numerically violations of a Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) for a composite quantum system in contact with two separate reservoirs at different temperatures. Remarkably we find that LGI violations can be enhanced when a heat current is established at low temperatures in a steady-state regime. Based on a Kraus operator decomposition of the non-unitary evolution for a system formed by two interacting spins or quantum bits, we provide analytical support for power law relations between dissipation strength and mean temperature in the borderlines separating parame…
We use two different approaches to derive multipartite Leggett-type inequalities, which are generalizations of the two-qubit Leggett-type inequality obtained in [Nature Phys. \textbf{4}, 681 (2008)]. The first approach is based on the assumption that the probability distributions should be non-negative. The second approach is based on a very simple algebraic equation and is, to some extent, easier than the first approach. Although these inequalities might not be the optimal ones in the sense that their quantum violations may not be the strongest, our results make the first step of generalizing…
We report an experimental study of recently formulated entropic Leggett-Garg inequality (ELGI) by Usha Devi et al. (arXiv: 1208.4491v2 (2012)). This inequality places a bound on the statistical measurement outcomes of dynamical observables describing a macrorealistic system. Such a bound is not necessarily obeyed by quantum systems, and therefore provides an important way to distinguish quantumness from classical behavior. Here we study ELGI using a two-qubit nuclear magnetic resonance system. To perform the noninvasive measurements required for the ELGI study, we prepare the system qubit in a…
Despite the great success of quantum mechanics, questions regarding its application still exist and the boundary between quantum and classical mechanics remains unclear. Based on the philosophical assumptions of macrorealism and noninvasive measurability, Leggett and Garg devised a series of inequalities (LG inequalities) involving a single system with a set of measurements at different times. Introduced as the Bell inequalities in time, the violation of LG inequalities excludes the hidden-variable description based on the above two assumptions. We experimentally investigated the single photon…
We show that in some cases the coherent state can have a larger violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) than the cat state by numerical calculations. To achieve this result, we consider the LGI of the cavity mode weakly coupled to a zero-temperature environment as a practical instance of the physical system. We assume that the bosonic mode undergoes dissipation because of an interaction with the environment but is not affected by dephasing. Solving the master equation exactly, we derive an explicit form of the violation of the inequality for both systems prepared initially in the cohere…
We analyze the class of nonlocal realistic theories that was originally considered by Leggett [Found. Phys. 33, 1469 (2003)] and tested by us in a recent experiment [Nature (London) 446, 871 (2007)]. We derive an incompatibility theorem that works for finite numbers of polarizer settings and that does not require the previously assumed rotational symmetry of the two-particle correlation functions. The experimentally measured case involves seven different measurement settings. Using polarization-entangled photon pairs, we exclude this broader class of nonlocal realistic models by experimentally…
Tests of local realism and macrorealism have historically been discussed in very similar terms: Leggett-Garg inequalities follow Bell inequalities as necessary conditions for classical behavior. Here, we compare the probability polytopes spanned by all measurable probability distributions for both scenarios and show that their structure differs strongly between spatially and temporally separated measurements. We arrive at the conclusion that, in contrast to tests of local realism where Bell inequalities form a necessary and sufficient set of conditions, no set of inequalities can ever be neces…
