Contextuality is a distinctive feature of quantum theory and a fundamental resource for quantum computation. However, existing examples of contextuality in high-dimensional systems lack the necessary robustness required in experiments. Here, we address this problem by identifying a family of noncontextuality inequalities whose maximum quantum violation grows with the dimension of the system. At first glance, this contextuality is the single-system version of multipartite Bell nonlocality taken to an extreme form. What is interesting is that the single-system version achieves the same degree of contextuality but uses a Hilbert space of lower dimension. That is, contextuality "concentrates" as the degree of contextuality per dimension increases. We show the practicality of this result by presenting an experimental test of contextuality in a seven-dimensional system. By simulating sequences of quantum ideal measurements with destructive measurements and repreparation in an all-optical setup, we report a violation of 68.7 standard deviations of the simplest case of the noncontextuality inequalities identified. Our results advance the investigation of high-dimensional contextuality, its connection to the Clifford algebra, and its role in quantum computation.
As a fundamental characteristic of physical entities, waveâparticle duality describes whether a microscopic entity exhibits wave or particle attributes depending on the specific experimental setup. This assumption is premised on the notion that physical properties are inseparable from the objective carrier. However, after the concept of the quantum Cheshire cats was proposed, which makes the separation of physical attributes from the entity possible, the premise no longer holds. Furthermore, an experimental demonstration of the separation of the wave and particle attributes inspired by this scenario remains scarce. In this work, we experimentally separated the wave and particle attributes of a single photon by exploiting the quantum Cheshire cat concept for the first time. By applying a weak disturbance to the evolution of the system, we achieve an effect similar to the quantum Cheshire cat and demonstrated the separation of the wave and particle attributes via the extraction of weak values. Our work provides a new perspective for the in-depth understanding of waveâparticle duality and promotes the application of weak measurements in fundamentals of quantum mechanics.
Quantum entanglement has shown distinguished features beyond any classical state. Many methods have been presented to verify unknown entanglement with the complete information about the density matrices by quantum state tomography. In this work, we aim to identify unknown entanglement with only partial information of the state space. The witness consists of a generalized Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger-like paradox expressed by Pauli observables, and a nonlinear entanglement witness expressed by density matrix elements. First, we verify unknown bipartite entanglement and study the robustness of entanglement witnesses against the white noise. Second, we generalize such verification to partially unknown multipartite entangled states, including the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger-type and W-type states. Third, we give a quantum-information application related to the quantum zero-knowledge proof. It further provides a useful method in blindly verifying universal quantum computation resources. These results may be interesting in entanglement theories, quantum communication, and quantum networks.
Masking of quantum information spreads it over nonlocal correlations and hides it from the subsystems. It is known that no operation can simultaneously mask all pure states [Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 230501 (2018)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.120.230501], so in what sense is quantum information masking useful? Here, we extend the definition of quantum information masking to general mixed states, and show that the resource of maskable quantum states is far more abundant than the no-go theorem seemingly suggests. Geometrically, the simultaneously maskable states lays on hyperdisks in the state hypersphere, and strictly contains the broadcastable states. We devise a photonic quantum information masking machine using time-correlated photons to experimentally investigate the properties of qubit masking, and demonstrate the transfer of quantum information into bipartite correlations and its faithful retrieval. The versatile masking machine has decent extensibility, and may be applicable to quantum secret sharing and fault-tolerant quantum communication. Our results provide some insights on the comprehension and potential application of quantum information masking.
BACKGROUND: The impact of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) on subsequent cardiovascular events in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) remains inconclusive. AIM: Our aim was to systematically assess the relationship between preexisting OSA and adverse cardiovascular events in patients with newly diagnosed ACS by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis. METHODS: We systematically searched PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane library for studies published up to May 1, 2020, that reported any association between OSA and cardiovascular events in patients with newly diagnosed ACS. The main outcomes were a composite of all-cause or cardiovascular death, recurrent myocardial infarction, stroke, repeat revascularization, or heart failure. We conducted a pooled analysis using the random-effects model. We also performed subgroup, sensitivity, heterogeneity analysis, and the assessment of publication bias. RESULTS: We identified 10 studies encompassing 3350 participants. The presence of OSA was associated with increased risk of adverse cardiovascular events in newly prognosed ACS (risk ratio [RR] 2.18, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.45-3.26, P < .001, I2 = 64%). Between-study heterogeneity was partially explained by a multicenter study (9 single-center studies, RR 2.33 95% CI 1.69-3.19, I2 =18%), and I2 remarkably decreased from 64% to 18%. Moreover, OSA significantly increased the incidence of repeat revascularization (8 studies) and heart failure (6 studies) in patients with newly diagnosed ACS. CONCLUSION: Patients with preexisting OSA are at greater risk of subsequent cardiovascular events after onset of ACS. Further studies should investigate the treatment of OSA in patient with ACS.
Acute Coronary Syndrome/complications , Cardiovascular Diseases/epidemiology , Cardiovascular Diseases/etiology , Percutaneous Coronary Intervention/adverse effects , Sleep Apnea, Obstructive/complications , Aged , Female , Heart Disease Risk Factors , Heart Failure/epidemiology , Heart Failure/etiology , Humans , Incidence , Male , Middle Aged , Observational Studies as Topic , Recurrence
A central result in the foundations of quantum mechanics is the Kochen-Specker theorem. In short, it states that quantum mechanics cannot be reconciled with classical models that are noncontextual for ideal measurements. The first explicit derivation by Kochen and Specker was rather complex, but considerable simplifications have been achieved thereafter. We propose a systematic approach to find minimal Hardy-type and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger-type (GHZ-type) proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem, these are characterized by the fact that the predictions of classical models are opposite to the predictions of quantum mechanics. Based on our results, we show that the Kochen-Specker set with 18 vectors from Cabello et al. [Phys. Lett. A 212, 183 (1996)PYLAAG0375-960110.1016/0375-9601(96)00134-X] is the minimal set for any dimension, verifying a longstanding conjecture by Peres. Our results allow to identify minimal contextuality scenarios and to study their usefulness for information processing.
Intuition suggests that an object should carry all of its physical properties. However, a quantum object may not act in such a manner-it can temporarily leave some of its physical properties where it never appears. This phenomenon is known as the quantum Cheshire cat effect. It has been proposed that a quantum object can even permanently discard a physical property and obtain a new one it did not initially have. Here, we observe this effect experimentally by casting non-unitary imaginary-time evolution on a photonic cluster state to extract weak values, which reveals the counterintuitive phenomenon that two photons exchange their spins without classically meeting each other. A phenomenon presenting only in the quantum realm, our results are in stark contrast with the perception of inseparability between objects and properties, and shed new light on comprehension of the ontology of observables.
Here, we present the most general framework for n-particle Hardy's paradoxes, which include Hardy's original one and Cereceda's extension as special cases. Remarkably, for any n≥3, we demonstrate that there always exist generalized paradoxes (with the success probability as high as 1/2^{n-1}) that are stronger than the previous ones in showing the conflict of quantum mechanics with local realism. An experimental proposal to observe the stronger paradox is also presented for the case of three qubits. Furthermore, from these paradoxes we can construct the most general Hardy's inequalities, which enable us to detect Bell's nonlocality for more quantum states.
Contextuality, the impossibility of assigning context-independent measurement outcomes, is a critical resource for quantum computation and communication. No-signaling between successive measurements is an essential requirement that should be accomplished in any test of quantum contextuality and that is difficult to achieve in practice. Here, we introduce an optimal quantum state-independent contextuality inequality in which the deviation from the classical bound is maximal. We then experimentally test it using single photons generated from a defect in a bulk silicon carbide, while satisfying the requirement of no-signaling within the experimental error. Our results shed new light on the study of quantum contextuality under no-signaling conditions.
Since the pillars of quantum theory were established, it was already noted that quantum physics may allow certain correlations defying any local realistic picture of nature, as first recognized by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen. These quantum correlations, now termed quantum nonlocality and tested by violation of Bell's inequality that consists of statistical correlations fulfilling local realism, have found loophole-free experimental confirmation. A more striking way to demonstrate the conflict exists, and can be extended to the multipartite scenario. Here we report experimental confirmation of such a striking way, the multipartite generalized Hardy's paradoxes, in which no inequality is used and the conflict is stronger than that within just two parties. The paradoxes we consider here belong to a general framework [S.-H. Jiang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 120 (2018) 050403], including previously known multipartite extensions of Hardy's original paradox as special cases. The conflict shown here is stronger than in previous multipartite Hardy's paradox. Thus, the demonstration of Hardy-typed quantum nonlocality becomes sharper than ever.
Recently quantum nonlocality has been classified into three distinct types: quantum entanglement, Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering, and Bell's nonlocality. Among which, Bell's nonlocality is the strongest type. Bell's nonlocality for quantum states is usually detected by violation of some Bell's inequalities, such as Clause-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality for two qubits. Steering is a manifestation of nonlocality intermediate between entanglement and Bell's nonlocality. This peculiar feature has led to a curious quantum phenomenon, the one-way Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering. The one-way steering was an important open question presented in 2007, and positively answered in 2014 by Bowles et al., who presented a simple class of one-way steerable states in a two-qubit system with at least thirteen projective measurements. The inspiring result for the first time theoretically confirms quantum nonlocality can be fundamentally asymmetric. Here, we propose another curious quantum phenomenon: Bell nonlocal states can be constructed from some steerable states. This novel finding not only offers a distinctive way to study Bell's nonlocality without Bell's inequality but with steering inequality, but also may avoid locality loophole in Bell's tests and make Bell's nonlocality easier for demonstration. Furthermore, a nine-setting steering inequality has also been presented for developing more efficient one-way steering and detecting some Bell nonlocal states.
In quantum theory, no-go theorems are important as they rule out the existence of a particular physical model under consideration. For instance, the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) theorem serves as a no-go theorem for the nonexistence of local hidden variable models by presenting a full contradiction for the multipartite GHZ states. However, the elegant GHZ argument for Bell's nonlocality does not go through for bipartite Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) state. Recent study on quantum nonlocality has shown that the more precise description of EPR's original scenario is "steering", i.e., the nonexistence of local hidden state models. Here, we present a simple GHZ-like contradiction for any bipartite pure entangled state, thus proving a no-go theorem for the nonexistence of local hidden state models in the EPR paradox. This also indicates that the very simple steering paradox presented here is indeed the closest form to the original spirit of the EPR paradox.
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering describes the ability of one observer to nonlocally "steer" the other observer's state through local measurements. EPR steering exhibits a unique asymmetric property; i.e., the steerability can differ between observers, which can lead to one-way EPR steering in which only one observer obtains steerability in the steering process. This property is inherently different from the symmetric concepts of entanglement and Bell nonlocality, and it has attracted increasing interest. Here, we experimentally demonstrate asymmetric EPR steering for a class of two-qubit states in the case of two measurement settings. We propose a practical method to quantify the steerability. We then provide a necessary and sufficient condition for EPR steering and clearly demonstrate one-way EPR steering. Our work provides new insight into the fundamental asymmetry of quantum nonlocality and has potential applications in asymmetric quantum information processing.
Non-adiabatic holonomic quantum computation in decoherence-free subspaces protects quantum information from control imprecisions and decoherence. For the non-collective decoherence that each qubit has its own bath, we show the implementations of two non-commutable holonomic single-qubit gates and one holonomic nontrivial two-qubit gate that compose a universal set of non-adiabatic holonomic quantum gates in decoherence-free-subspaces of the decoupling group, with an encoding rate of (N - 2)/N. The proposed scheme is robust against control imprecisions and the non-collective decoherence, and its non-adiabatic property ensures less operation time. We demonstrate that our proposed scheme can be realized by utilizing only two-qubit interactions rather than many-qubit interactions. Our results reduce the complexity of practical implementation of holonomic quantum computation in experiments. We also discuss the physical implementation of our scheme in coupled microcavities.
Quatum nonlocality as a valuable resource is of vital importance in quantum information processing. The characterization of the resource has been extensively investigated mainly for pure states, while relatively less is know for mixed states. Here we prove the existence of the optimal GHZ paradox by using a novel and simple method to extract an optimal state that can saturate the tradeoff relation between quantum nonlocality and the state purity. In this paradox, the logical inequality which is formulated by the GHZ-typed event probabilities can be violated maximally by the optimal state for any fixed amount of purity (or mixedness). Moreover, the optimal state can be described as a standard GHZ state suffering flipped color noise. The maximal amount of noise that the optimal state can resist is 50%. We suggest our result to be a step toward deeper understanding of the role played by the AVN proof of quantum nonlocality as a useful physical resource.
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.
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 by all mixed states with the above steering property. The new class of states allows one e.g. to perform three party secret sharing with just pairs of entangled qubits, instead of three qubit entanglements (which are currently available with low fidelity). This significantly increases the feasibility of having high performance versions of such protocols. Finally, we discuss some possible applications.
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering, a generalization of the original concept of "steering" proposed by Schrödinger, describes the ability of one system to nonlocally affect another system's states through local measurements. Some experimental efforts to test EPR steering in terms of inequalities have been made, which usually require many measurement settings. Analogy to the "all-versus-nothing" (AVN) proof of Bell's theorem without inequalities, testing steerability without inequalities would be more strong and require less resources. Moreover, the practical meaning of steering implies that it should also be possible to store the state information on the side to be steered, a result that has not yet been experimentally demonstrated. Using a recent AVN criterion for two-qubit entangled states, we experimentally implement a practical steering game using quantum memory. Furthermore, we develop a theoretical method to deal with the noise and finite measurement statistics within the AVN framework and apply it to analyze the experimental data. Our results clearly show the facilitation of the AVN criterion for testing steerability and provide a particularly strong perspective for understanding EPR steering.
In comparison with entanglement and Bell nonlocality, Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering is a newly emerged research topic and in its incipient stage. Although Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering has been explored via violations of steering inequalities both theoretically and experimentally, the known inequalities in the literatures are far from well-developed. As a result, it is not yet possible to observe Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering for some steerable mixed states. Recently, a simple approach was presented to identify Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering based on all-versus-nothing argument, offering a strong condition to witness the steerability of a family of two-qubit (pure or mixed) entangled states. In this work, we show that the all-versus-nothing proof of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering can be tested by measuring the projective probabilities. Through the bound of probabilities imposed by local-hidden-state model, the proposed test shows that steering can be detected by the all-versus-nothing argument experimentally even in the presence of imprecision and errors. Our test can be implemented in many physical systems and we discuss the possible realizations of our scheme with non-Abelian anyons and trapped ions.
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 currently 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 from two sources manifest a two-qubit-typed correlation that may result in the violation of the Leggett inequality, while satisfying the no-signaling condition for spacelike separation. Our scheme is tolerant to some local inaccuracies due to the topological nature of the Aharonov-Casher phase. The experimental implementation of our scheme can be possibly realized by a calcium atomic polarization interferometer experiment.
