Abstract: That superpositions of states can be useful for performing tasks in quantum systems has been known since the early days of quantum information, but only recently has a quantitative theory of quantum coherence been proposed. Here we apply that theory to an analysis of the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm, which depends on quantum coherence for its operation. The Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm solves a decision problem, and we focus on a probabilistic version of that problem, comparing probability of being correct for both classical and quantum procedures. In addition, we study a related decision problem in which the quantum procedure has one-sided error while the classical procedure has two-sided error. The role of coherence on the quantum success probabilities in both of these problems is examined.

Abstract: The pigeonhole principle: “If you put three pigeons in two pigeonholes, at least two of the pigeons end up in the same hole,” is an obvious yet fundamental principle of nature as it captures the very essence of counting. Here however we show that in quantum mechanics this is not true! We find instances when three quantum particles are put in two boxes, yet no two particles are in the same box. Furthermore, we show that the above “quantum pigeonhole principle” is only one of a host of related quantum effects, and points to a very interesting structure of quantum mechanics that was hitherto unnoticed. Our results shed new light on the very notions of separability and correlations in quantum mechanics and on the nature of interactions. It also presents a new role for entanglement, complementary to the usual one. Finally, interferometric experiments that illustrate our effects are proposed.

Abstract: The concept of classical $f$-divergences gives a unified framework to construct and study measures of dissimilarity of probability distributions; special cases include the relative entropy and the Renyi divergences. Various quantum versions of this concept, and more narrowly, the concept of Renyi divergences, have been introduced in the literature with applications in quantum information theory; most notably Petz' quasi-entropies (standard $f$-divergences), Matsumoto's maximal $f$-divergences, measured $f$-divergences, and sandwiched and $\alpha$-$z$-Renyi divergences. In this paper we give a systematic overview of the various concepts of quantum $f$-divergences with a main focus on their monotonicity under quantum operations, and the implications of the preservation of a quantum $f$-divergence by a quantum operation. In particular, we compare the standard and the maximal $f$-divergences regarding their ability to detect the reversibility of quantum operations. We also show that these two quantum $f$-divergences are strictly different for non-commuting operators unless $f$ is a polynomial, and obtain some analogous partial results for the relation between the measured and the standard $f$-divergences. We also study the monotonicity of the $\alpha$-$z$-Renyi divergences under the special class of bistochastic maps that leave one of the arguments of the Renyi divergence invariant, and determine domains of the parameters $\alpha,z$ where monotonicity holds, and where the preservation of the $\alpha$-$z$-Renyi divergence implies the reversibility of the quantum operation.

Abstract: In this work, we explore an alternative quantum structure to perform quantum probabilistic inferences to accommodate the paradoxical findings of the Sure Thing Principle. We propose a Quantum-Like Bayesian Network, which consists in replacing classical probabilities by quantum probability amplitudes. However, since this approach suffers from the problem of exponential growth of quantum parameters, we also propose a similarity heuristic that automatically fits quantum parameters through vector similarities. This makes the proposed model general and predictive in contrast to the current state of the art models, which cannot be generalized for more complex decision scenarios and that only provide an explanatory nature for the observed paradoxes. In the end, the model that we propose consists in a nonparametric method for estimating inference effects from a statistical point of view. It is a statistical model that is simpler than the previous quantum dynamic and quantum-like models proposed in the literature. We tested the proposed network with several empirical data from the literature, mainly from the Prisoner's Dilemma game and the Two Stage Gambling game. The results obtained show that the proposed quantum Bayesian Network is a general method that can accommodate violations of the laws of classical probability theory and make accurate predictions regarding human decision-making in these scenarios.

Abstract: In this article we present a possible way to make usual quantum mechanics fully compatible with physical realism, defined as the statement that the goal of physics is to study entities of the natural world, existing independently from any particular observer’s perception, and obeying universal and intelligible rules. Rather than elaborating on the quantum formalism itself, we propose a new quantum ontology, where physical properties are attributed jointly to the system, and to the context in which it is embedded. In combination with a quantization principle, this non-classical definition of physical reality sheds new light on counter-intuitive features of quantum mechanics such as the origin of probabilities, non-locality, and the quantum-classical boundary.

Abstract: Creating a rigorous mathematical theory of randomness is far from being complete, even in the classical case. Probability and Randomness: Quantum versus Classical rectifies this and introduces mathematical formalisms of classical and quantum probability and randomness with brief discussion of their interrelation and interpretational and foundational issues. The book presents the essentials of classical approaches to randomness, enlightens their successes and problems, and then proceeds to essentials of quantum randomness. Its wide-ranging and comprehensive scope makes it suitable for researchers in mathematical physics, probability and statistics at any level.

Abstract: Because of inevitable coupling with the environment, nearly all practical quantum systems are open system, where the evolution is not necessarily unitary. In this paper, we propose a duality quantum algorithm for simulating Hamiltonian evolution of an open quantum system. In contrast to unitary evolution in a usual quantum computer, the evolution operator in a duality quantum computer is a linear combination of unitary operators. In this duality quantum algorithm, the time evolution of the open quantum system is realized by using Kraus operators which is naturally implemented in duality quantum computer. This duality quantum algorithm has two distinct advantages compared to existing quantum simulation algorithms with unitary evolution operations. Firstly, the query complexity of the algorithm is O(d3) in contrast to O(d4) in existing unitary simulation algorithm, where d is the dimension of the open quantum system. Secondly, By using a truncated Taylor series of the evolution operators, this duality quantum algorithm provides an exponential improvement in precision compared with previous unitary simulation algorithm.

Abstract: Introduction.- The Curious History of Quantum Mechanics.- Quantum Entanglement and Nonlocality.- Reversing Time.- The Transactional Interpretation.- Quantum Paradoxes and Applications of the TI.- Nonlocal Signaling?.- Quantum Communication, Encryption, Teleportation, and Computing.- The Nature and Structure of Time.- Conclusion.- Appendices: A. Frequently Asked Questions about Quantum Mechanics and the Transactional Interpretation.- B. A Brief Overview of the Quantum Formalism.- C. Quantum Dice and Poker - Nonlocal Games of Chance.- D. Detailed Analyses of Selected Gedankenexperiments.

Abstract: Recent experiments report violations of the classical law of total probability and incompatibility of certain mental representations when humans process and react to information. Evidence shows promise of a more general quantum theory providing a better explanation of the dynamics and structure of real decision-making processes than classical probability theory. Inspired by this, we show how the behavioral choice-probabilities can arise as the unique stationary distribution of quantum stochastic walkers on the classical network defined from Luce's response probabilities. This work is relevant because (i) we provide a very general framework integrating the positive characteristics of both quantum and classical approaches previously in confrontation, and (ii) we define a cognitive network which can be used to bring other connectivist approaches to decision-making into the quantum stochastic realm. We model the decision-maker as an open system in contact with her surrounding environment, and the time-length of the decision-making process reveals to be also a measure of the process' degree of interplay between the unitary and irreversible dynamics. Implementing quantum coherence on classical networks may be a door to better integrate human-like reasoning biases in stochastic models for decision-making.

Abstract: Frauchiger and Renner have recently claimed to prove that "Single-world interpretations of quantum theory cannot be self-consistent". This is contradicted by a construction due to Bell, inspired by Bohmian mechanics, which shows that any quantum system can be modelled in such a way that there is only one "world" at any time, but the predictions of quantum theory are reproduced. This Bell-Bohmian theory is applied to the experiment proposed by Frauchiger and Renner, and their argument is critically examined. It is concluded that it is their version of "standard quantum theory", incorporating state vector collapse upon measurement, that is not self-consistent.

Abstract: What is called “orthodox” quantum mechanics, as presented in standard foundational discussions, relies on two substantive assumptions—the projection postulate and the eigenvalue-eigenvector link—that do not in fact play any part in practical applications of quantum mechanics. I argue for this conclusion on a number of grounds, but primarily on the grounds that the projection postulate fails correctly to account for repeated, continuous and unsharp measurements (all of which are standard in contemporary physics) and that the eigenvalue-eigenvector link implies that virtually all interesting properties are maximally indefinite pretty much always. I present an alternative way of conceptualising quantum mechanics that does a better job of representing quantum mechanics as it is actually used, and in particular that eliminates use of either the projection postulate or the eigenvalue-eigenvector link, and I reformulate the measurement problem within this new presentation of orthodoxy.

Abstract: An equilibrium-based YinYang bipolar dynamic Generalization of CPT (G-CPT) symmetry is introduced based on energy/information conservational quantum emergence-submergence. As a bottleneck of quantum computing, quantum decoherence or collapse has been plaguing quantum mechanics for decades. It is suggested that the crux of the problem can trace its origin back to the incompleteness of CPT symmetry due to the lack of holistic representation for equilibrium-based bipolar coexistence. In this work, the notion of quantum emergence-submergence is coined as two opposite processes with bipolar energy/information conservation. The new notion leads to G-CPT symmetry supported by a Bipolar Quantum Cellular Automata (BQCA) interpretation of quantum mechanics. It is shown that the new interpretation further leads to the unification of electromagnetic particle-antiparticle bipolarity and gravitational action-reaction bipolarity as well as CPT symmetry and CP violation into a philosophically, geometrically and logically different quantum gravity theory. On one hand, G-CPT symmetry enables a Bipolar Quantum Agent (BQA) to emerge as a bipolar quantum superposition or entanglement coupled to a globally coherent BQCA; on the other hand, G-CP violation supports a causal theory of BQA submergence or decoupling from the global coherence. In turn, BQAs can submerge from one world but emerge in another within YinYang bipolar quantum geometry. It is suggested that all logical, physical, social, biological and mental worlds are bipolar quantum entangled under G-CPT symmetry. It is contended that G-CPT symmetry constitutes an analytical paradigm of quantum mechanics and quantum gravity—a fundamental departure from “what goes around comes around”. The new paradigm leads to a number of predictions and challenges.

Abstract: The interpretation of quantum theory is one of the longest-standing debates in physics. Type I interpretations see quantum probabilities as determined by intrinsic properties of the observed system. Type II see them as relational experiences between an observer and the system. It is usually believed that a decision between these two options cannot be made simply on purely physical grounds but requires an act of metaphysical judgment. Here we show that, under some assumptions, the problem is decidable using thermodynamics. We prove that type I interpretations are incompatible with the following assumptions: (i) The choice of which measurement is performed can be made randomly and independently of the system under observation, (ii) the system has limited memory, and (iii) Landauer's erasure principle holds.

Abstract: This chapter provides an introduction to the use of diagrammatic language, or perhaps more accurately, diagrammatic calculus, in quantum information and quantum foundations. We illustrate the use of diagrammatic calculus in one particular case, namely the study of complementarity and non-locality, two fundamental concepts of quantum theory whose relationship we explore in later part of this chapter.

Abstract: In this paper, we describe a possible generalization of the Wasserstein 2-metric, originally defined on the space of scalar probability densities, to the space of Hermitian matrices with trace one, and to the space of matrix-valued probability densities. Our approach follows a computational fluid dynamical formulation of the Wasserstein-2 metric and utilizes certain results from the quantum mechanics of open systems, in particular the Lindblad equation. It allows determining the gradient flow for the quantum entropy relative to this matricial Wasserstein metric. This may have implications to some key issues in quantum information theory.

Abstract: A unifying principle explaining the numerical bounds of quantum correlations remains elusive, despite the efforts devoted to identifying it. Here, we show that these bounds are indeed not exclusive to quantum theory: for any abstract correlation scenario with compatible measurements, models based on classical waves produce probability distributions indistinguishable from those of quantum theory and, therefore, share the same bounds. We demonstrate this finding by implementing classical microwaves that propagate along meter-size transmission-line circuits and reproduce the probabilities of three emblematic quantum experiments. Our results show that the "quantum" bounds would also occur in a classical universe without quanta. The implications of this observation are discussed.

Abstract: Four formulations of quantum mechanics on noncommutative Moyal phase spaces are reviewed. These are the canonical, path-integral, Weyl-Wigner and systematic formulations. Although all these formulations represent quantum mechanics on a phase space with the same deformed Heisenberg algebra, there are mathematical and conceptual differences which we discuss.

Abstract: We investigate the statistics of the first detected passage time of a quantum walk. The postulates of quantum theory, in particular the collapse of the wave function upon measurement, reveal an intimate connection between the wave function of a process free of measurements, i.e. the solution of the Schrodinger equation, and the statistics of first detection events on a site. For stroboscopic measurements a quantum renewal equation yields basic properties of quantum walks. For example, for a tight binding model on a ring we discover critical sampling times, diverging quantities such as the mean time for first detection, and an optimal detection rate. For a quantum walk on an infinite line the probability of first detection decays like $(\mbox{time})^{-3}$ with a superimposed oscillation, critical behavior for a specific choice of sampling time, and vanishing amplitude when the sampling time approaches zero due to the quantum Zeno effect.

Abstract: Floquet theory provides rigorous foundations for the theory of periodically driven quantum systems. In the case of non-periodic driving, however, the situation is not so well understood. Here, we provide a critical review of the theoretical framework developed for quasi-periodically driven quantum systems. Although the theoretical footing is still under development, we argue that quasi-periodically driven quantum systems can be treated with generalizations of Floquet theory in suitable parameter regimes. Moreover, we provide a generalization of the Floquet-Magnus expansion and argue that quasi-periodic driving offers a promising route for quantum simulations.

Abstract: Information Retrieval (IR) is concerned with indexing and retrieving documents including information relevant to a user's information need. Relevance Feedback (RF) is a class of effective algorithms for improving Information Retrieval (IR) and it consists of gathering further data representing the user's information need and automatically creating a new query. In this paper, we propose a class of RF algorithms inspired by quantum detection to re-weight the query terms and to re-rank the document retrieved by an IR system. These algorithms project the query vector on a subspace spanned by the eigenvector which maximizes the distance between the distribution of quantum probability of relevance and the distribution of quantum probability of non-relevance. The experiments showed that the RF algorithms inspired by quantum detection can outperform the state-of-the-art algorithms.

Abstract: A major advantage in using Szegedy's formalism over discrete-time and continuous-time quantum walks lies in its ability to define a unitary quantum walk on directed and weighted graphs. In this paper, we present a general scheme to construct efficient quantum circuits for Szegedy quantum walks that correspond to classical Markov chains possessing transformational symmetry in the columns of the transition matrix. In particular, the transformational symmetry criteria do not necessarily depend on the sparsity of the transition matrix, so this scheme can be applied to non-sparse Markov chains. Two classes of Markov chains that are amenable to this construction are cyclic permutations and complete bipartite graphs, for which we provide explicit efficient quantum circuit implementations. We also prove that our scheme can be applied to Markov chains formed by a tensor product. We also briefly discuss the implementation of Markov chains based on weighted interdependent networks. In addition, we apply this scheme to construct efficient quantum circuits simulating the Szegedy walks used in the quantum Pagerank algorithm for some classes of non-trivial graphs, providing a necessary tool for experimental demonstration of the quantum Pagerank algorithm.

Abstract: A stochastic filter uses a series of measurements over time to produce estimates of unknown variables based on a dynamic model. For a quantum system, such an algorithm is provided by a quantum filter, which is also known as a stochastic master equation (SME). For a linear quantum system subject to linear measurements and Gaussian noise, the quantum filter reduces to a quantum Kalman filter. In this article, we introduce a quantum extended Kalman filter (quantum EKF), which applies a commutative approximation and a time-varying linearization to non-commutative quantum stochastic differential equations (QSDEs). We will show that there are conditions under which a filter similar to the classical EKF can be implemented for quantum systems. The boundedness of estimation errors and the filtering problems with `state-dependent' covariances for process and measurement noises are also discussed. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the quantum EKF by applying it to systems which involve multiple modes, nonlinear Hamiltonians and simultaneous jump-diffusive measurements.

Abstract: We discuss the energetic cost of superadiabatic models of quantum computation. Specifically, we investigate the energy-time complementarity in general transitionless controlled evolutions and in shortcuts to the adiabatic quantum search over an unstructured list. We show that the additional energy resources required by superadiabaticity for arbitrary controlled evolutions can be minimized by using probabilistic dynamics, so that the optimal success probability is fixed by the choice of the evolution time. In the case of analog quantum search, we show that the superadiabatic approach induces a non-oracular counter-diabatic Hamiltonian, with the same energy-time complexity as equivalent adiabatic implementations.

Abstract: While quantum theory cannot be described by a local hidden variable model, it is nevertheless possible to construct such models that exhibit features commonly associated with quantum mechanics. These models are also used to explore the question of $$\psi $$ -ontic versus $$\psi $$ -epistemic theories for quantum mechanics. Spekkens’ toy theory is one such model. It arises from classical probabilistic mechanics via a limit on the knowledge an observer may have about the state of a system. The toy theory for the simplest possible underlying system closely resembles stabilizer quantum mechanics, a fragment of quantum theory which is efficiently classically simulable but also non-local. Further analysis of the similarities and differences between those two theories can thus yield new insights into what distinguishes quantum theory from classical theories, and $$\psi $$ -ontic from $$\psi $$ -epistemic theories. In this paper, we develop a graphical language for Spekkens’ toy theory. Graphical languages offer intuitive and rigorous formalisms for the analysis of quantum mechanics and similar theories. To compare quantum mechanics and a toy model, it is useful to have similar formalisms for both. We show that our language fully describes Spekkens’ toy theory and in particular, that it is complete: meaning any equality that can be derived using other formalisms can also be derived entirely graphically. Our language is inspired by a similar graphical language for quantum mechanics called the ZX-calculus. Thus Spekkens’ toy bit theory and stabilizer quantum mechanics can be analysed and compared using analogous graphical formalisms.

Abstract: We show that the standard representation of homogeneous isotropic loop quantum cosmology (LQC) is the GNS-representation that corresponds to the unique state on the reduced quantum holonomy-flux $^*$-algebra that is invariant under residual diffeomorphisms $-$ both when the standard algebra is used as well as when one uses the extended algebra proposed by Fleischhack. More precisely, we find that in both situations the GNS-Hilbert spaces coincide, and that in the Fleischhack case the additional algebra elements are just mapped to zero operators. In order for the residual diffeomorphisms to have a well-defined action on the quantum algebra, we have let them act on the fiducial cell as well as on the dynamical variables, thereby recovering covariance. Consistency with Ashtekar and Campiglia in the Bianchi I case is also shown.

Abstract: Quantum mechanics and probability theory share one peculiarity. Both have well established mathematical formalisms, yet both are subject to controversy about the meaning and interpretation of their basic concepts. Since probability plays a fundamental role in QM, the conceptual problems of one theory can affect the other. We first classify the interpretations of probability into three major classes: (a) inferential probability, (b) ensemble probability, and (c) propensity. Class (a) is the basis of inductive logic; (b) deals with the frequencies of events in repeatable experiments; (c) describes a form of causality that is weaker than determinism. An important, but neglected, paper by P. Humphreys demonstrated that propensity must differ mathematically, as well as conceptually, from probability, but he did not develop a theory of propensity. Such a theory is developed in this paper. Propensity theory shares many, but not all, of the axioms of probability theory. As a consequence, propensity supports the Law of Large Numbers from probability theory, but does not support Bayes theorem. Although there are particular problems within QM to which any of the classes of probability may be applied, it is argued that the intrinsic quantum probabilities (calculated from a state vector or density matrix) are most naturally interpreted as quantum propensities. This does not alter the familiar statistical interpretation of QM. But the interpretation of quantum states as representing knowledge is untenable. Examples show that a density matrix fails to represent knowledge.