Correlations, Bell Inequality Violation & Quantum Entanglement

It is one of the most remarkable features of quantum physics that measurements on spatially separated systems cannot always be described by a locally causal theory. In such a theory, the outcomes of local measurements are determined in advance solely by some unknown (or hidden) variables and the choice of local measurements. Correlations that are allowed within the framework of a locally causal theory are termed classical. Typically, the fact that quantum mechanics does not always result in classical correlations is revealed by the violation of Bell inequalities, which are constraints that have to be satisfied by any classical correlations. It has been known for a long time that entanglement is necessary to demonstrate nonclassical correlations, and hence a Bell inequality violation. However, since some entangled quantum states are known to admit explicit locally causal models, the exact role of entanglement in Bell inequality violation has remained obscure. This thesis provides both a comprehensive review on these issues as well as a report on new discoveries made to clarify the relationship between entanglement and Bell inequality violation.Comment: PhD Thesis (176 pages). This thesis contains (1) a pedagogical review of the field (2) results previously reported in quant-ph/0604045, quant-ph/0608128, quant-ph/0703268, arXiv:0710.5350 (3) some relevant details omitted from these publications (4) a formal proof of equivalence between the class of CGLMP inequalities and the I_{22dd} inequalitie

All bipartite entangled states display some hidden nonlocality

We show that a violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality can be demonstrated in a certain kind of Bell experiment for all bipartite entangled states. Our protocol allows local filtering measurements and involves shared ancilla states that do not themselves violate CHSH. Our result follows from two main steps. We first provide a simple characterization of the states that violate the CHSH-inequality after local filtering operations in terms of witness-like operators. Second, we prove that for each entangled state $\sigma$, there exists another state $\rho$ not violating CHSH, such that $\rho\otimes\sigma$ violates CHSH. Hence, in this scenario, $\sigma$ cannot be substituted by classical correlations without changing the statistics of the experiment; we say that $\sigma$ is not simulable by classical correlations and our result is that entanglement is equivalent to non-simulability.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Bounding the plausibility of physical theories in a device-independent setting via hypothesis testing

The device-independent approach to physics is one where conclusions about physical systems (and hence of Nature) are drawn directly and solely from the observed correlations between measurement outcomes. This operational approach to physics arose as a byproduct of Bell's seminal work to distinguish, via a Bell test, quantum correlations from the set of correlations allowed by local-hidden-variable theories. In practice, since one can only perform a finite number of experimental trials, deciding whether an empirical observation is compatible with some class of physical theories will have to be carried out via the task of hypothesis testing. In this paper, we show that the prediction-based-ratio method---initially developed for performing a hypothesis test of local-hidden-variable theories---can equally well be applied to test many other classes of physical theories, such as those constrained only by the nonsignaling principle, and those that are constrained to produce any of the outer approximation to the quantum set of correlations due to Navascu\'es-Pironio-Ac\'{\i}n. We numerically simulate Bell tests using hypothetical nonlocal sources of correlations to illustrate the applicability of the method in both the independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) scenario and the non-i.i.d. scenario. As a further application, we demonstrate how this method allows us to unveil an apparent violation of the nonsignaling conditions in certain experimental data collected in a Bell test. This, in turn, highlights the importance of the randomization of measurement settings, as well as a consistency check of the nonsignaling conditions in a Bell test.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, 3 tables (essentially the published version with simplified discussion and clearer presentation of results

Demonstrating quantum contextuality of indistinguishable particles by a single family of noncontextuality inequalities

Quantum theory has the intriguing feature that is inconsistent with noncontextual hidden variable models, for which the outcome of a measurement does not depend on which other compatible measurements are being performed concurrently. While various proofs of such contextual behavior of quantum systems have been established, relatively little is known concerning the possibility to demonstrate this intriguing feature for indistinguishable particles. Here, we show in a simple and systematic manner that with projective measurements alone, it is possible to demonstrate quantum contextuality for such systems of arbitrary Hilbert space dimensions, including those corresponding to a qubit. Our demonstration is applicable to a single fermion as well as multiple fermions, and thus also a composite boson formed from an even number of fermions. In addition, our approach gives a clear demonstration of the intimate connection between complementarity and contextuality, two seemingly unrelated aspects of quantum theory.Comment: 9 pages, no figure; Major changes; More changes. Accepted in Scientific Report