Papers QISS1

We consider the quantum version of the bandit problem known as {em best arm identification} (BAI). We first propose a quantum modeling of the BAI problem, which assumes that both the learning agent and the environment are quantum; we then propose an algorithm based on quantum amplitude amplification to solve BAI. We formally analyze the behavior of the algorithm on all instances of the problem and we show, in particular, that it is able to get the optimal solution quadratically faster than what is known to hold in the classical case.

Quantum field theory is completely characterized by the field correlations between spacetime points. In turn, some of these can be accessed by locally coupling to the field simple quantum systems, a.k.a. particle detectors. In this work, we consider what happens when a quantum-controlled superposition of detectors at different space-time points is used to probe the correlations of the field. We show that, due to quantum interference effects, two detectors can gain information on field correlations which would not be otherwise accessible. This has relevant consequences for information theoretic quantities, like entanglement and mutual information harvested from the field. In particular, the quantum control allows for extraction of entanglement in scenarios where this is otherwise provably impossible.

The tension between the value of the Hubble constant $H_0$ determined from local supernovae data and the one inferred from the cosmic microwave background based on the $Lambda$CDM cosmological model may indicate the need for new physics. Here, we show that this `Hubble tension’ can be resolved in models involving an effective energy flufrom the matter sector into dark energy resulting naturally from a combination of unimodular gravity and an energy diffusion process. The scheme is one where dark energy has the standard equation of state $w=-1$. This proposal provides an alternative phenomenological paradigm accounting for the observations, while offering a general framework to study diffusion effects coming from novel fundamental physical processes.

We use a quantum variant of the Sagnac interfeQILab Rometer to argue for the quantum nature of gravity as well as to formulate a quantum version of the equivalence principle. We first present an original derivation of the phase acquired in the conventional Sagnac matter-wave interfeQILab Rometer, within the Hamiltonian formalism. Then we modify the interfeQILab Rometer in two crucial respects. The interfering matter wave is interfered along two different distances from the centre and the interfeQILab Rometer is prepared in a superposition of two different angular velocities. We argue that if the radial and angular degrees of freedom of the matter wave become entangled through this experiment, then, via the equivalence principle, the gravitational field must be non-classical.

Sharing correlated random variables is a resource for a number of information theoretic tasks such as privacy amplification, simultaneous message passing, secret sharing and many more. In this article, we show that to establish such a resource called shared randomness, quantum systems provide an advantage over their classical counterpart. Precisely, we show that appropriate albeit fixed measurements on a shared two-qubit state can generate correlations which cannot be obtained from any possible state on two classical bits. In a resource theoretic set-up, this feature of quantum systems can be interpreted as an advantage in winning a two players co-operative game, which we call the `non-monopolize social subsidy’ game. It turns out that the quantum states leading to the desired advantage must possess non-classicality in the form of quantum discord. On the other hand, while distributing such sources of shared randomness between two parties via noisy channels, quantum channels with zero capacity as well as with classical capacity strictly less than unity perform more efficiently than the perfect classical channel. Protocols presented here are noise-robust and hence should be realizable with state-of-the-art quantum devices.

In approaches to quantum gravity, where smooth spacetime is an emergent approximation of a discrete Planckian fundamental structure, any effective smooth field theoretical description would miss part of the fundamental degrees of freedom and thus break unitarity. This is applicable also to trivial gravitational field (low energy) idealizations realized by the use of the Minkowski background geometry which, as any other spacetime geometry, corresponds, in the fundamental description, to infinitely many different and closely degenerate discrete microstates. The existence of such microstates provides a large reservoir for information to be coded at the end of black hole evaporation and thus opens the way to a natural resolution of the black hole evaporation information puzzle. In this paper we show that these expectations can be made precise in a simple quantum gravity model for cosmology motivated by loop quantum gravity. Concretely, even when the model is fundamentally unitary, when microscopic degrees of freedom irrelevant to low-energy cosmological observers are suitably ignored, pure states in the effective description evolve into mixed states due to decoherence with the Planckian microscopic structure. Moreover, in the relevant physical regime these hidden degrees freedom do not carry any `energy’ and thus realize in a fully quantum gravitational context the idea (emphasized before by Unruh and Wald) that decoherence can take place without dissipation, now in a concrete gravitational model strongly motivated by quantum gravity. All this strengthen the perspective of a quite conservative and natural resolution of the black hole evaporation puzzle where information is not destroyed but simply degraded (made unavailable to low energy observers) into correlations with the microscopic structure of the quantum geometry at the Planck scale.

The Einstein equations allow solutions containing closed timelike curves. These have generated much puzzlement and suspicion that they could imply paradoxes. I show that puzzlement and paradoxes disappears if we discuss carefully the physics of the irreversible phenomena in the context of these solutions.

We address the study of quantum metrology enhanced by indefinite causal order, demonstrating a quadratic advantage in the estimation of the product of two average displacements in a continuous variable system. We prove that no setup where the displacements are probed in a fixed order can have root-mean-square error vanishing faster than the Heisenberg limit 1/N, where N is the number of displacements contributing to the average. In stark contrast, we show that a setup that probes the displacements in a superposition of two alternative orders yields a root-mean-square error vanishing with super-Heisenberg scaling 1/N^2. This result opens up the study of new measurement setups where quantum processes are probed in an indefinite order, and suggests enhanced tests of the canonical commutation relations, with potential applications to quantum gravity.

We describe how one may go about performing quantum computation with arbitrary “quantum stuff”, as long as it has some basic physical properties. Imagine a long strip of stuff, equipped with regularly spaced wires to provide input settings and to read off outcomes. After showing how the corresponding map from settings to outcomes can be construed as a quantum circuit, we provide a machine learning algorithm to tomographically “learn” which settings implement the members of a universal gate set. At optimum, arbitrary quantum gates, and thus arbitrary quantum programs, can be implemented using the stuff.

The quantum measurement problem can be regarded as the tension between the two alternative dynamics prescribed by quantum mechanics: the unitary evolution of the wave function and the state-update rule (or “collapse”) at the instant a measurement takes place. The notorious Wigner’s friend gedankenexperiment constitutes the paradoxical scenario in which different observers (one of whom is observed by the other) describe one and the same interaction differently, one –the Friend– via state-update and the other –Wigner– unitarily. This can lead to Wigner and his friend assigning different probabilities to the outcome of the same subsequent measurement. In this paper, we apply the Page-Wootters mechanism (PWM) as a timeless description of Wigner’s friend-like scenarios. We show that the standard rules to assign two-time conditional probabilities within the PWM need to be modified to deal with the Wigner’s friend gedankenexperiment. We identify three main definitions of such modified rules to assign two-time conditional probabilities, all of which reduce to standard quantum theory for non-Wigner’s friend scenarios. However, when applied to the Wigner’s friend setup each rule assigns different conditional probabilities, potentially resolving the probability-assignment paradoin a different manner. Moreover, one rule imposes strict limits on when a joint probability distribution for the measurement outcomes of Wigner and his Friend is well-defined, which single out those cases where Wigner’s measurement does not disturb the Friend’s memory and such a probability has an operational meaning in terms of collectible statistics. Interestingly, the same limits guarantee that said measurement outcomes fulfill the consistency condition of the consistent histories framework.