Hi all,
Tomorrow Oliver Knapp will tell us about his master thesis with Esteban,
entitled "Relational quantities and subsystems in symmetry-constrained
quantum theories". See below for the abstract. Join us at 2pm on Zoom:
https://ethz.zoom.us/j/362994444.
Best,
Joe
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Abstract: It is argued that only relational quantities, such as the
distance between two objects, are physically meaningful. Consequently,
unobservable quantities, such as the global position of a particle, should
be considered as artifacts of our mathematical description. In this work,
we review current approaches, based on coherent and incoherent group
averaging, aimed at identifying and describing relational quantities, and
discuss some difficulties arising within these approaches. In particular,
we study subsystems defined w.r.t. reference frames and show that
unexpected phenomena occur once we consider "unsharp" reference frames
instead of ideal ones. Furthermore, we introduce a rigorous definition of
relational subsystems based on group averaged operator algebras. However,
we prove several theorems which suggest that group averaged operators
cannot be used in quantum field theory to define a relational subsystem
structure that is compatible with the causal structure of spacetime. We
argue that such difficulties arise because approaches involving group
averaging can only capture a subset of all relational quantities contained
within a theory. Subsequently, we propose a general framework, based on
probability theory, that allows for a rigorous description of all
relational quantities. We demonstrate that within this framework many
difficulties encountered when using group averaging can be overcome.
Hi all,
Tomorrow Eliott Mamon will present his semester project with Victor,
entitled "Exploring noncontextuality of prepare-and-measure scenarios
with a numerical algorithm". See below for the abstract. Join us at
2pm on zoom: https://ethz.zoom.us/j/362994444
Best,
Joe
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Using a numerical implementation of the unit-separability algorithm
proposed in [1], the question of existence of a noncontextual model is
assessed for various single-qubit prepare-and-measure scenarios.
Noncontextual scenarios that are not included in the Spekkens toy
model scenario are pointed out, and a trend between contextuality and
areas of randomly sampled planar scenarios is uncovered.
(Non)contextuality is also assessed for scenarios involved in
strategies of a two-agent encoding/decoding game, which exposes
contextuality as necessary and sufficient for better-than-classical
strategies at that game.
[1] Gitton, V., & Woods, M. P. (2020). Solvable criterion for the
contextuality of any prepare-and-measure scenario. arXiv preprint
arXiv:2003.06426
Hi all,
Tomorrow our guest Marco Tomamichel will tell us about some of his latest
research, specifically "Sequential quantum hypothesis testing". The paper
is available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.14706, and I have copied the
abstract below.
Join us at 2pm on zoom: https://ethz.zoom.us/j/362994444.
Best,
Joe
%%%%%
We consider sequential hypothesis testing between two quantum states using
adaptive and non-adaptive strategies. In this setting, samples of an
unknown state are requested sequentially and a decision to either continue
or to accept one of the two hypotheses is made after each test. Under the
constraint that the number of samples is bounded, either in expectation or
with high probability, we exhibit adaptive strategies that minimize both
types of misidentification errors. Namely, we show that these errors
decrease exponentially (in the stopping time) with decay rates given by the
measured relative entropies between the two states. Moreover, if we allow
joint measurements on multiple samples, the rates are increased to the
respective quantum relative entropies. We also fully characterize the
achievable error exponents for non-adaptive strategies and provide
numerical evidence showing that adaptive measurements are necessary to
achieve our bounds under some additional assumptions.
>From Vilasini:
Hi all,
This week we have a visitor, Ämin Baumeler from IQOQI, Vienna who will
be giving a seminar on “Logical limits on correlations and causal
structures” at 4pm on Thursday, 2nd of December at HIT E 41.1. The
abstract is as attached below. It would be a blackboard talk but I
will aim to stream it live (and also record it) at the following zoom
link, for those who would be interested in attending online.
https://ethz.zoom.us/j/66298777504
Title:
Logical limits on correlations and causal structures
Abstract:
The self-consistency principle stipulates that the only solutions to
physical laws that occur locally are those that are self-consistent.
In this talk, after a discussion of this principle, I present several
consequences. First, I show that in a classical setting a violation of
this principle not only encompasses what colloquially is known as the
grandparent paradox, but also that this paradox is equivalent to
the information paradox (with E. Tselentis, QPL 2020,
10.4204/EPTCS.340.1). Second, I present self-consistent multi-party
correlations inspired by Bell, Ardehali, and Svetlichny that violate
causal order to an unbounded degree (with A. S. Gilani and J. Rashid,
arXiv:2004.12921 [quant-ph]). Finally, I discuss some recent
characterizations of self-consistent and inconsistent causal structures
(with E. Tselentis, work in progress).
Best regards,
Vilasini