We show using a numerical approach that gives necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of local realism, that the bound entangled state presented in Bennett et. al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 5385 (1999) admits a local and realistic description. We also find the lowest possible amount of some appropriate entangled state that must be ad-mixed to the bound entangled state so that the resulting density operator has no local and realistic description and as such can be useful in quantum communication and quantum computation.
The usual entanglement swapping protocol can entangle two particles that never interact. Here we demonstrate an all-versus-nothing violation of local realism for a partial entanglement swapping process. A Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt-type inequality for two particles entangled by entanglement swapping is proposed for a practical experiment and can be violated quantum mechanically up to 4 beyond Cirel'son's bound 2sqr(2). Our result uncovers the intriguing nonlocal character of entanglement swapping and may lead to a conclusive (loophole-free) test of local realism versus quantum mechanics. The e…
It is shown that the model introduced by Cabello et al. to criticize the Franson experiment suffers from the same weakness as the previous model introduced by Aerts et al. with the same purpose. It is also shown why we can assume with confidence that the Franson experiment does violate local realism.
We develop and exploit a source of two-photon four-dimensional entanglement to report the first two-particle all-versus-nothing test of local realism with a linear optics setup, but without resorting to a non-contextuality ssumption. Our experimental results are in well agreement with quantum mechanics while in extreme contradiction with local realism. Potential applications of our experiment are briefly discussed.
Mermin's observation [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 65}, 1838 (1990)] that the magnitude of the violation of local realism, defined as the ratio between the quantum prediction and the classical bound, can grow exponentially with the size of the system is demonstrated using two-photon hyper-entangled states entangled in polarization and path degrees of freedom, and local measurements of polarization and path simultaneously.
We address the question as to whether an entangled state that satisfies local realism will give a violation of the same, after entanglement swapping in a suitable scenario. We consider such possibility as a kind of superadditivity in nonclassicality. Importantly, it will indicate that checking for violation of local realism, in the state obtained after entanglement swapping, can be a method for detecting entanglement in the input state of the swapping procedure. We investigate various entanglement swapping schemes, which involve mixed initial states. The strength of violation of local realism …
A standard approach in the foundations of quantum mechanics studies local realism and hidden variables models exclusively in terms of violations of Bell-like inequalities. Thus quantum nonlocality is tied to the celebrated no-go theorems, and these comprise a long list that includes the Kochen-Specker and Bell theorems, as well as elegant refinements by Mermin, Peres, Hardy, GHZ, and many others. Typically entanglement or carefully prepared multipartite systems have been considered essential for violations of local realism and for understanding quantum nonlocality. Here we show, to the contrar…
Using spatiotemporal Born rule for testing macroscopic realism: some applications to the pseudo-density matrices and nonclassical temporal correlations
The Franson interferometer, proposed in 1989 [J. D. Franson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 62:2205-2208 (1989)], beautifully shows the counter-intuitive nature of light. The quantum description predicts sinusoidal interference for specific outcomes of the experiment, and these predictions can be verified in experiment. In the spirit of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen it is possible to ask if the quantum-mechanical description (of this setup) can be considered complete. This question will be answered in detail in this paper, by delineating the quite complicated relation between energy-time entanglement experi…
We investigate the influence of environmental noise on polarization entangled light generated by parametric emission in a cavity. By adopting a recently developed separability criterion, we show that: i) self-stimulation may suppress the detrimental influence of noise on entanglement; ii) when self-stimulation becomes effective, a classical model of parametric emission incorporating noise provides the same results of quantum theory for the expectation values involved in the separability criterion. Moreover we show that, in the macroscopic limit, it is impossible to observe violations of local …
The central focus of this work is to make progress towards understanding entanglement as a resource for computation by examining the quantum correlations that can be extracted from stabilizer states. As such, we focus on the stabilizer formalism, local realism, and the convergence of the two.
In the Schrödinger-cat gedanken experiment a cat is in a quantum superposition of two macroscopically distinct states, alive and dead.The paradoxical interpretation of quantum mechanics is that the cat is not in one state or the other, alive or dead, immediately prior to its measurement. Because of this apparent defiance of macroscopic reality, quantum superpositions of states macroscopically distinct have generated much interest. Here we address the issue of proving a contradiction with macroscopic reality objectively, through the testable predictions of quantum mechanics. We consider the pre…
We report the first experimental violation of local realism in four-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) entanglement. In the experiment, the non-statistical GHZ conflicts between quantum mechanics and local realism are confirmed, within the experimental accuracy, by four specific measurements of polarization correlations between four photons. In addition, our experimental results not only demonstrate a violation of Mermin-Ardehali-Belinskii-Klyshko inequality by 76 standard deviations, but also for the first time provide sufficient evidence to confirm the existence of genuine four-particl…
We have experimentally created a robust, ultrabright and phase-stable polarization-entangled state close to maximally entangled Bell-state with $ \% 98 $-fidelity using the type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) process in periodically-poled KTiOPO$ _4 $ (PPKTP) collinear crystal inside a Sagnac interferometer (SI). Bell inequality measurement, Freedman's test, as the different versions of CHSH inequality, and also visibility test which all can be seen as the nonlocal realism tests, imply that our created entangled state shows a strong violation from the classical physics or any…
Quantum codewords are highly entangled combinations of two-state systems. The standard assumptions of local realism lead to logical contradictions similar to those found by Bell, Kochen and Specker, Greenberger, Horne and Zeilinger, and Mermin. The new contradictions have some noteworthy features that did not appear in the older ones.
From an operational criterion of physical reality, a quantifier of realism-based nonlocality was recently introduced for two-part quantum states. This measure has shown to capture aspects that are rather different from Bell nonlocality. Here we take a step further and introduce a tripartite realism-based nonlocality quantifier. We show that this measure reduces to genuine tripartite entanglement for a certain class of pure tripartite states and manifests itself in correlated mixed states even in the absence of quantum correlations. A case study for noisy GHZ and W states points out the existen…
Many experiments have shown that locality-realism theory is at variance with quantum mechanics predictions. Although locality and realism, which are two different conceptions, are given respective definition, the descriptions of the both are a little of abstract when they are applied to real experimental situations. The abstract descriptions result in difficulty for one to judge whether the variance come from locality or realism or both. Here we provide more detailed descriptions of locality and realism, and show that any system being in a pure state or a non-maximally mixed state has property…
We demonstrate here that for a given mixed multi-qubit state if there are at least two observers for whom mutual Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering is possible, i.e. each observer is able to steer the other qubits into two different pure states by spontaneous collapses due to von Neumann type measurements on his/her qubit, then nonexistence of local realistic models is fully equivalent to quantum entanglement (this is not so without this condition). This result leads to an enhanced version of Gisin's theorem (originally: all pure entangled states violate local realism). Local realism is violated…
That quantum correlations can be generated over time between the spin and the position of a quantum walker is indisputable. The creation of bipartite entanglement has also been reported for two-walker systems. In this scenario, however, since the global state lies in a fourpartite Hilbert space, the question arises as to whether genuine multipartite entanglement may develop in time. Also, since the spatial degrees of freedom can be viewed as a noisy channel for the two-spin part, one may wonder how other nonclassical aspects, such as Bell nonlocality, Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering, quantum …
The codification in higher dimensional Hilbert Spaces (whose logical basis states are dubbed qudits in analogy with bidimensional qubits) presents various advantages both for Quantum Information applications and for studies on Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Purpose of this review is to introduce qudits, to summarize their application to Quantum Communication and researches on Local Realism and, finally, to describe some recent experiment for realizing them. A Little more in details: after a short introduction, we will consider the advantages of testing local realism with qudits, discussing …
Based on the form invariance of the structures given by Khinchin's axiomatic foundations of information theory and the pseudoadditivity of the Tsallis entropy indexed by q, the concept of conditional entropy is generalized to the case of nonadditive (nonextensive) composite systems. The proposed nonadditive conditional entropy is classically nonnegative but can be negative in the quantum context, indicating its utility for characterizing quantum entanglement. A criterion deduced from it for separability of density matrices for validity of local realism is examined in detail by employing a bipa…
The temporal Bell inequalities are derived from the assumptions of realism and locality in time. It is shown that quantum mechanics violates these inequalities and thus is in conflict with the two assumptions. This can be used for performing certain tasks that are not possible classically. Our results open up a possibility for introducing the notion of entanglement in time in quantum physics.
We show that (1) the violation of the Ekert 91 inequality is a sufficient condition for certification of the Kochen-Specker (KS) theorem, and (2) the violation of the Bennett-Brassard-Mermin 92 (BBM) inequality is, also, a sufficient condition for certification of the KS theorem. Therefore the success in each QKD protocol reveals the nonclassical feature of quantum theory, in the sense that the KS realism is violated. Further, it turned out that the Ekert inequality and the BBM inequality are depictured by distillable entanglement witness inequalities. Here, we connect the success in these two…
Results obtained in two recent papers, \cite{Kaszlikowski} and \cite{Durt}, seem to indicate that the nonlocal character of the correlations between the outcomes of measurements performed on entangled systems separated in space is not robust in the presence of noise. This is surprising, since entanglement itself is robust. Here we revisit this problem and argue that the class of gedanken-experiments considered in \cite{Kaszlikowski} and \cite{Durt} is too restrictive. By considering a more general class, involving sequences of measurements, we prove that the nonlocal correlations are in fact r…
Quantum experiments usually assume the existence of perfect, classical, reference frames, which allow for the specification of measurement settings (e.g. orientation of the Stern Gerlach magnet in spin measurements) with arbitrary precision. If the reference frames are "bounded" (i.e. quantum systems themselves, having a finite number of degrees of freedom), only limited precision can be attained. Using spin coherent states as bounded reference frames we have found their minimal size needed to violate local realism for entangled spin systems. For composite systems of spin-1/2 particles referen…
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 imposes a constraint on feasible local operations. As we show in an example, the necessary particle entanglement might solely result from their indistinguishability. Our result reveals a fundamental relation between the non-locality and the particle entanglement.
Entanglement, according to Erwin Schroedinger the essence of quantum mechanics, is at the heart of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox and of the so called quantum-nonlocality - the fact that a local realistic explanation of quantum mechanics is not possible as quantitatively expressed by violation of Bell's inequalities. Even as entanglement gains increasing importance in most quantum information processing protocols, its conceptual foundation is still widely debated. Among the open questions are: What is the conceptual meaning of quantum entanglement? What are the most general constraints im…
Cluster states are multi-particle entangled states with special entanglement properties particularly suitable for quantum computation. It has been shown that cluster states can exhibit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ)-type non-locality even when some of their qubits have been lost. In the present work, we generated a four-photon mixed state, which is equivalent to the partial, qubit-loss state of an N-qubit cluster state up to some local transformations. By using this mixed state, we then realize a GHZ-type violation of local realism. Our results not only demonstrate a mixed state's GHZ-type …
It is briefly demonstrated that Gisin's so-called 'locality' assumption [arXiv:0901.4255] is in fact equivalent to the existence of a local deterministic model. Thus, despite Gisin's suggestions to the contrary, 'local realism' in the sense of Bell is built into his argument from the very beginning. His 'locality' assumption may more appropriately be labelled 'separability'. It is further noted that the increasingly popular term 'quantum nonlocality' is not only misleading, but tends to obscure the important distinction between no-signalling and separability. In particular, 'local non-realism'…
Local realism has been knocked down by the experiments with entangled pairs of particles based on Bell's theorem(J. S. Bell, Physics (Long Island City, N.Y.) 1, 195 (1964)). However, there has been continuing debate on whether locality or realism is the problem. In this work, we analyzed the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen thought experiment of Bohm's version using information theory and thermodynamics. The inference of non-locality from EPR experiments will be against the principle of non-realism of quantum mechanics. Therefore, the experiments about quantum entanglement cannot provide any proof to a…
Quantum mechanics stands in conflict with local realism only in its treatment of separated systems. A modification of quantum mechanics that changes the handling of separated systems is suggested that can reconcile quantum mechanics with local realism. An apparent obstacle to this program is the experimental evidence, but I argue that the experiments have been misinterpreted. By way of example, I describe a local realistic account of one important EPRB experiment that is claimed to demonstrate nonlocal entanglement. The local model can be calibrated into both quantum and classical domains via …
All previous tests of local realism have studied correlations between single-particle measurements. In the present experiment, we have performed a Bell experiment on three particles in which one of the measurements corresponds to a projection onto a maximally-entangled state. We show theoretically and experimentally, that correlations between these entangled measurements and single-particle measurements are too strong for any local-realistic theory and are experimentally exploited to violate a CHSH-Bell inequality by more than 5 standard deviations. We refer to this possibility as "entangled e…
In quant-ph/0205017 v1 Chen, Wu and Yang formulated a necessary separability criterion based on a realignment method for matrices. This note is to point out that this criterion is identical to the necessary cross norm criterion previously put forward by this author.
Macroscopic realism is a classical worldview that a macroscopic system is always determinately in one of the two or more macroscopically distinguishable states available to it, and so is never in a superposition of these states. The question of whether there is a fundamental limitation on the possibility to observe quantum phenomena at the macroscopic scale remains unclear. Here we implement a strict and simple protocol to test macroscopic realism in a light-matter interfaced system. We create a micro-macro entanglement with two macroscopically distinguishable solid-state components and rule o…
We discuss a kind of generalized concurrence for a class of high dimensional quantum pure states such that the entanglement of formation is a monotonically increasing convex function of the generalized concurrence. An analytical expression of the entanglement of formation for a class of high dimensional quantum mixed states is obtained.
In contrast to the intuitively plausible assumption of local realism, entangled particles, even when isolated, are not allowed to possess definite properties in their own right, as quantitatively expressed by violations of Bell's inequalities [1]. Even as entanglement is now a key feature of quantum information and communication technology [2,3], it remains the most puzzling feature of quantum mechanics [4] and its conceptual foundation is still widely debated. Here we demonstrate that physical systems providing dicotomic outcomes are not able to guarantee both the rotation properties of physi…
We study the Bell nonlocality of high dimensional quantum systems based on quantum entanglement. A quantitative relationship between the maximal expectation value B of Bell operators and the quantum entanglement concurrence C is obtained for even dimension pure states, with the upper and lower bounds of B governed by C.
Although entanglement is widely recognized as one of the most fascinating characteristics of quantum mechanics, nonlocality remains to be a big labyrinth. The proof of existence of nonlocality is as yet not much convincing because of its strong reliance on Bell's theorem where the assumption of realism weakens the proof. We demonstrate that entanglement and quantum nonlocality are two equivalent aspects of the same quantum wholeness for spacelike separated quantum systems. This result implies that quantum mechanics is indeed a nonlocal theory and lays foundation of understanding quantum nonloc…
Recently, a number of two-participant all-versus-nothing Bell experiments have been proposed. Here, we give local realistic explanations for these experiments. More precisely, we examine the scenario where a participant swaps his entanglement with two other participants and then is removed from the experiment; we also examine the scenario where two particles are in the same light cone, i.e. belong to a single participant. Our conclusion is that, in both cases, the proposed experiments are not convincing proofs against local realism.
In this letter we discuss entanglement properties of neutral kaons systems and their use for testing local realism. In particular we show that, as previous proposals, also a scheme recently suggested for performing a test of hidden variable theories against standard quantum mechanics cannot be conclusive.
We study quantum states for which the PPT criterion is both sufficient and necessary for separability. We present a class of 3x3 bipartite mixed states and show that these states are separable if and only if they are PPT.
Within the Wigner-PDC picture of photon entanglement, detection "errors" are not independent (though they may look, on average), nor can they be controlled by means of a technological improvement on the detectors. Those two elements make possible the interpretation of experimental evidence without the need to exclude local realism: for that reason, we propose the abandonment of the usual (photon, particle-based) description of (PDC-generated) light states, in favour of an also quantum, but field-theoretical description (QED), a description that finds a one-to-one equivalent in the Wigner-PDC a…
We show that a system of 2n identical two-level atoms interacting with n cavity photons manifests entanglement and that the set of entangled states coincides with the so-called SU(2) phase states. In particular, violation of classical realism in terms of the GHZ and GHSH conditions is proved. We discuss a new property of entanglement expressed in terms of local measurements. We also show that generation of entangled states in the atom-photon systems under consideration strongly depends on the choice of initial conditions and that the parasitic influence of cavity detuning can be compensated th…
Using the information content of correlations between multipartite systems, together with the notion of partitioning, we show that some general results about the evolution of correlations in quantum systems can be derived with only elementary methods. In particular, we show that for 2 quantum systems A and B, each comprised of a number of sub-systems, in which a partition of A interacts unitarily with a partition of B, then the total correlation can only increase (or remain unchanged) and is given simply by the sum of the initial correlation and the correlation that develops as a result of the…
Bell inequality is a mathematical inequality derived using the assumptions of locality and realism. Its violation guarantees the existence of quantum correlations in a quantum state. Bell inequality acts as an entanglement witness in the sense that a pure bipartite quantum state, having nonvanishing entanglement, always violates a Bell inequality. We construct Bell-type inequalities for product states in quantum coherence theory for different measures of coherence, and find that the maximally entangled states violate these inequalities. We further show that Bell-type inequalities for relative …
We study generalized concurrences as a tool to detect the entanglement of bipartite quantum systems. By considering the case of 2 X 4 states of rank 2, we prove that generalized concurrences do not, in general, give a necessary and sufficient condition of separability. We identify a set of entangled states which are undetected by this method.
Grounded on the quantum measurement riddle, a general argument against the universal validity of the superposition principle was recently put forward by Bassi and Ghirardi. It is pointed out that this argument is valid only within the realm of the philosophy of ``objectivistic realism'' which is not a necessary part of the foundations of physics, and that recent developments including decoherence theory do account for the appearance of macroscopic objects without resorting to a break of the principle.
There is a direct correspondence between two-particle, entangled quantum states, for example, Bell states, and the relative values of the component one-particle states. This leads to a new rationale for quantum computing which makes use of sequential processing of one-particle states rather than the parallel processing associated with multiparticle states. It is shown that deterministic transformations can correspond to certain Bell state operations. There are some implications for the continuing discussion of quantum realism and entanglement. A principle of relative realism is advocated.
We present the experimental observation of polarization entanglement for three spatially separated photons. Such states of more than two entangled particles, known as GHZ states, play a crucial role in fundamental tests of quantum mechanics versus local realism and in many quantum information and quantum computation schemes. Our experimental arrangement is such that we start with two pairs of entangled photons and register one photon in a way that any information as to which pair it belongs to is erased. The registered events at the detectors for the remaining three photons then exhibit the de…
Despite the unparalleled accuracy of quantum-theoretical predictions across an enormous range of phenomena, the theory's foundations are still in doubt. The theory deviates radically from classical physics, predicts counterintuitive phenomena, and seems inconsistent. The biggest stumbling block is measurement, where the Schrodinger equation's unitary evolution seems inconsistent with collapse. These doubts have inspired a variety of proposed interpretations and alterations of the theory. Most interpretations posit the theory represents only observed appearances rather than reality. The realist…
Wave-particle duality is an essential character of quantum systems. In the last few years, much progress has being made towards formally quantifying these quantum features. The properties of the quantum density matrix were shown to lead to duality inequalities for single-quanton mixed states and to triality identities, also known as complete complementarity relations (CCRs), for two-quanton pure states. In this article, we establish connections between CCRs and EPR (ir)realism, as formalized by Bilobran and Angelo in [Europhys. Lett. 112, 40005 (2015)]. Besides, we show that, for tripartite pu…
We propose a novel setup to investigate the quantum non-locality of orbital angular momentum states living in a high-dimensional Hilbert space. We incorporate non-integer spiral phase plates in spatial analyzers, enabling us to use only two detectors. The resulting setup is somewhat reminiscent of that used to measure polarization entanglement. However, the two-photon states that are produced, are not confined to a 2X2-dimensional Hilbert space, and the setup allows the probing of correlations in a high-dimensional space. For the special case of half-integer spiral phase plates, we predict a v…
We show that two related measures of k-coherence, called the standard and generalized robustness of k-coherence, are equal to each other when restricted to pure states. As a direct application of the result, we establish an equivalence between two analogous measures of Schmidt rank k-entanglement for all pure states. This answers conjectures raised in the literature regarding the evaluation of the quantifiers, and facilitates an efficient quantification of pure-state resources by introducing computable closed-form expressions for the two measures.
The thesis is divided into three parts. In the first part a new theoretical analysis of interferometric experiments by Alley-Shih, Ou-Mandel and the entanglement swapping experiment is performed. It is shown that the double- and single-photon distinguishability is not necessary for the experiments to be genuine tests against local realism. In the second part, basing on simple geometrical properties of Hilbert space, new, stronger Bell inequalities for M qubits in a maximally entangled state are derived. Application of the same method to two maximally entangled qubits yields an inequality for a…