med)

WINNING
GAMES
WITH QUANTUM TRICKS

Lecturer: Yuxiang Yang

These slides are made exclusively for internal use

in the course CCST9077.
 Objective of today’s lecture: to change your view of the world.

Today you will nd out that this intuitive view of the world is wrong:

(1) the world is made of objects (2) two objects can affect each
that have well-de ned properties only if they are close to each other

Lego blocks image from istockphoto

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PREVIOUSLY IN
CCST 9077 …
ENTANGLEMENT

entanglement
=
two (or more) systems together have in a well-de ned state
even though
each individual system does not have a well-de ned state.

Erwin Schrödinger

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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 STEERING
steering = when two systems are in an entangled state,
a measurement on one system can force the other system
to acquire a well-de ned state.
The type of state depends on the type of measurement.

Example:
ℬ

Alice Type-1 source,

Bob
producing two entangled
in the “Bell state”
State of Bob’s system becomes
Alice nds

State of Bob’s system becomes

Alice nds

State of Bob’s system becomes

Alice can choose to measure
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SPOOKY ACTION AT DISTANCE?

Steering happens even if the two systems are arbitrarily far from each other.

It looks as if Bob’s photon instantaneously “feels” what Alice does to her photon.

Albert Einstein called this situation

“spooky action at distance.”

Albert Einstein
 But what makes Bob’s system aware of Alice’s measurement?

Photo from Getty Images

Quantum mechanics does not tell us anything about this…

In the following, we will see what Albert Einstein thought about it.
 (Instead of)

Einstein cartoon from clipart-library.com

 THE
EPR
AFFAIR
Albert Einstein
Boris Podolsky Nathan Rosen
caricature from
Misty, pngitem.com
Einstein was not pleased with the article.
Apparently, he had not been contacted about it.

His collaborator, Podolsky, had talked to a journalist about their work,

and the New York Time article appeared before the actual scienti c paper.

Any information upon which the article

'Einstein Attacks Quantum Theory' in your issue of May 4 is based
was given to you without authority.
It is my invariable practice to discuss scienti c matters
only in the appropriate forum
and I deprecate advance publication of any announcement
in regard to such matters in the secular press.

So, what was the big fuss about this paper?

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THE ACTUAL PAPER

Well, Einstein wasn’t too pleased about the paper, either:

“it did not come out as well as I had originally wanted”
EINSTEIN’S IDEA

In Einstein’s view, physical theories should provide a description of reality.

(1) Systems have some real properties:

properties that are de ned independently of our measurements.
(“the moon is there even if I don’t look at it”)
For example, a property could be the polarization of a photon: or ,
should provide a description of reality.
or , or , or …
“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, does it still make noise?”

(2) Reality is local.

The properties of one system cannot be affected without interacting with that system.
In particular, the property of a system cannot be affected instantaneously by what we do
on another system.
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Now, recall what happens with steering:

Alice Bob

State of Bob’s system becomes

Alice nds

State of Bob’s system becomes

Alice nds

According to Einstein, Alice’s measurement cannot affect a real property of Bob’s system.

If the polarization of Bob’s photon is a real property, then quantum theory is incomplete,
because it does not tell us what is the polarization of Bob’s system before the measurement.
(Bob’s polarization should already be vertical/horizontal, but QM cannot predict it.)
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Moreover, Alice’s choice of measurement can determine the type of state of Bob’s photon

Alice Bob

If Alice tests vs then Bob’s system jumps to state or to state

If Alice tests vs then Bob’s system jumps to state or to state

It seems that the Bell state corresponds to two distinct situations on Bob’s side:

• Situation 1: Bob’s photon is either or

• Situation 2: Bob’s photon is either or

In summary, given the two assumptions made by Einstein,
the Bell state does not tell us which of the two situations holds: Situation 1 or Situation 2?

Einstein’s conclusion was

that the Bell state is an incomplete description of reality.
CAN WE FIND
A COMPLETE
THEORY?

Photo Credit: www.business2community.com

OK, let’s forget about quantum states.

Let’s forget about quantum theory altogether.

Can we build some other physical theory that is compatible with our experiments
and completely describes reality?

EPR believed so.

In the end of their paper, they wrote

“While we have thus shown that [this entangled state]

does not provide a complete description of the physical reality,
we left open the question of whether or not such a description exists.

We believe, however, that such a theory is possible.”

 But how do we build a complete theory?

And if we do not manage to build a complete theory,

how can we know that no one else will build it in the future?

Is this just a matter of personal

belief?
 For many years, the possibility that quantum mechanics could be replaced by
a complete theory was discussed mostly in a non-scienti c way…

Why waste time You are so lazy!

searching for new theories? Am I the only one in this family
Quantum theory works very well. who cares about
Just stick to it our understanding of reality?
and we are good!

Image from Getty iStock/ Estradaanton fi

 At the beginning, the EPR paper remained mostly as a philosophical curiosity:
since its publication in 1935 up to 1980, it was cited only 36 times.

And some things

that should not have been forgotten were lost.
History became legend. Legend became myth.
And [for many] years,
the [EPR paper passed out of all knowledge…

Galadriel, still from Peter Jackson’s

2001 movie adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s
“Lord of the Rings”
Now EPR has become Einstein’s most cited paper (per Google)
]
 …UNTIL
JOHN BELL
CAME
BELL’S THEOREM
In 1964 (29 years after EPR),
John Stewart Bell found a way to
test whether
there exists a deeper theory
that describes reality
in a local way.
(i.e., in the way Einstein wanted)

Technically, he proved a theorem,

now called Bell’s theorem.
John Bell and his famous theorem (Image: CERN)

Let’s see the basic ideas contained in his theorem!

 REALISM
Let’s assume that • there exists a reality independent of our measurements
• there exists a physical theory that completely describes this reality.

complete description
of reality:
a list of properties λ
credit DICP
LOCALITY
Locality is the assumption that two objects cannot affect each other instantaneously.

Suppose that Alice and Bob make simultaneous experiments

on two distant objects

Bob’s laboratory
Alice’s laboratory

(The probabilities of) Alice ’s outcomes here …not on

depend only on λ what Bob chooses to measure here!
and on what Alice chooses to measure…
(and vice-versa)
A BIT OF DICTIONARY

A physical theory is called local realistic if

• it provides a complete description of reality

• it satis es the locality condition.
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 BELL’S INEQUALITIES

Bell’s theorem
the correlations arising in every local realistic theory
must satisfy certain testable conditions.
Nowadays these conditions are called “Bell inequalities.”

if we perform an experiment
and we nd correlations that violate a Bell inequality,
then we can be sure that
no one will ever nd a local realistic theory describing our experiment.

Bell’s contribution:
Bring local realism from philosophy to a testable property:
Perform experiments, collect statistics, and check with Bell inequalities:
All Bell inequalities hold Local realistic theory may exist or may not.
Any Bell inequality violated No local realistic theory

believed to exist
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THE PLOT THICKENS…
Bell also showed that
quantum theory predicts a violation of Bell inequalities
for certain experiments performed on entangled states.

Experiments should
satisfy all
Bell inequalities!
No!
Experiments can violate
some Bell inequalities!

clipart from pngitem.com

Local realism VS Quantum mechanics

Which one will win?

photo from Adobe stock

 EXPERIMENTS
ON
BELL INEQUALITIES
 BELL TESTS
Attempts to test Bell inequalities in the lab started in the 1970s.
However, they were not conclusive.

The rst convincing experiments were done in 1980-1982

by Alain Aspect, who at that time was a PhD student.

They observed a violation of Bell inequalities with photons.

Alain Aspect, photo from Balzan Prize

Do you see any problem with the

experiment from the photo?

Later, other groups showed violations

of Bell inequalities with atoms and
superconducting qubits.

Setup of Aspect’s experiment, from Aspect’s PhD thesis

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 A new generation of Bell experiments arrived in 2015,
closing some loopholes that affected previous experiments
(in particular, the new experiments guarantee that no signal can travel
from Alice to Bob during each run of the experiment)

Nature , – ( ). https://qutech.nl/lab/hanson-lab.

Local
realism
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This conclusion is HUGE
It shows that the world is not the way we thought it was!

(1) Realism: the world is made of objects (2) Locality: two objects can affect each
that have well-de ned properties only if they are close to each other

NO

Lego blocks image from istockphoto

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 John Clauser
@HKU in 2024

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 was awarded jointly to Alain Aspect,
John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger "for experiments with entangled
photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering
quantum information science
John Clauser Michael Horne

EXAMPLE
OF
A BELL INEQUALITY:

THE CHSH GAME

Richard Holt

Abner Shimony
 I will ask one question
to each of you.

Alice and Bob participate to a TV game, with these rules:

• Alice and Bob are sent to two separate rooms

and are not allowed to communicate* during the game
(but they may share random coins, quantum states etc.)
*this corresponds to the locality condition in local realism.

• A referee asks one question to each player.

They don’t see each other’s question.
For each player, there are two possible questions,
say “Question 1” and “Question 2.”

• For each question Alice and Bob have two possible answers,
say “Answer 1” and “Answer 2.”

• If the referee asks “Question 1” to both players,

image from istockphoto
then they win when they give opposite answers.
In all the other cases, the players win when they give the same answer.
 CARTOON ILLUSTRATION

Alice′s answer no communication Bob′s answer

Alice Question for Alice Bob Question for Bob

| 0⟩

Question for Alice Question for Bob

Referee
𝒜
𝒜


Let’s see a couple of rounds of the game…

You win!

Round 1:

Question 1 Answer 1 Question 1 Answer 2

to win, answers should be different

You lose!

Round 2:

Question 1 Answer 1 Question 2 Answer 2

to win, answers should be same

A PUZZLE FOR YOU

Suppose that the all possible combinations of questions have the same probability to be asked.

Recall:
When both asked “Question 1”, they win when they give opposite answers.
In all the other cases, they win when they give the same answer.

What is the highest probability that Alice and Bob win the game?
SOLUTION

3
Yes, you got it right! :-) The highest winning probability is , that is, 75%
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You found your first Bell inequality!

if Alice and Bob play the game many times

and win more than 75% of the times,
then their strategy in the game cannot be described by a local realistic theory.
WINNING MORE WITH QUANTUM MECHANICS

Shocking fact:
quantum mechanics allows Alice and Bob to win with higher probability.

Using quantum entanglement,

2+ 2
Alice and Bob can win with probability ≈ 85 %
4

The chance to win has increased from 75% to 85%!

 QUANTUM STRATEGIES

• Step 1.
Before the beginning of the game, Alice and Bob prepare two qubits in an entangled state.
When they go to TV, Alice keeps one qubit and Bob keeps the other one.

| 0⟩

…continues on the next slide

𝒜
 • Step 2.
Each of the players brings 2 measurement devices in her/his room.
When the player receives the question from the referee,
the player performs a measurements on her/his qubit.
The player uses “Device 1” if the question is “Question 1” or
“Device 2” if the question is “Question 2.”

| 0⟩

| ψm⟩

| ψm⟩
Measurement Measurement
| αm⟩
Measurement Measurement
| ψm⟩

device #1 device #2
device #1 device #2
𝒜
 • Step 3.
Alice and Bob read the outcomes of their measurements,
and use them as answers.

Example: suppose that both Alice and Bob get “Question 1.”

I got ”Outcome 1” I got ”Outcome 2”

| 0⟩

You win!

| ψm⟩

| ψm⟩
Measurement Measurement
| αm⟩
Measurement Measurement
| ψm⟩

device #1 device #2
device #1 device #2
𝒜
 SUMMARY
OF
THE
CHSH GAME
TAKE HOME MESSAGE

• If the world is local and realistic,

then Alice and Bob cannot win the CHSH game with higher than 75% probability.

• But quantum mechanics tells us that there exists one way for Alice and Bob
to win with 85% probability.

CHSH is the most popular Bell inequality,

and its violation has been shown in many experiments
(including the famous 2015 experiments)
 TRUE
RANDOMNESS

art from https://www.iybssd2022.org

ANOTHER HUGE CONSEQUENCE
OF BELL’S THEOREM

Alice’s and Bob’s outcomes are truly random.

• No local theory can predict in advance what these outcomes will be.
(if it could, Alice and Bob could win with more than 75% probability)

• In particular, no record of Alice’s and Bob’s outcomes can exist in the world
before Alice and Bob makes their experiments.
 When a Bell inequality is violated,
we cannot think that our measurements
reveal the value of some pre-existing quantity.

Sometimes, our experiments are more like this… …than like this

image from vectorstock image from shutterstock

 FROM PHILOSOPHY
TO
TECHNOLOGY:

SECURE RANDOM NUMBER

GENERATORS
THE IMPORTANCE OF RANDOMNESS

You may not have noticed it,

but randomness is very important in your everyday life.

Every time you pick a password,

you should make sure
that the password cannot be
easily guessed by a hacker.
For the hacker, your password
should be random.
graphics from ovdss.com

Behind the scenes,

laptops and smartphones often need to pick
random numbers, e.g. to secure a browsing session
Randomness is also important
for gambling, games…

credit: microsoft.com

image: istockphoto

…scienti c and nancial

computing.

Montecarlo integration, image nvidia.com image evergreensmallbusiness.com

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HOW TO GENERATE RANDOMNESS?

By picking some sequence

of characters only you know?

Not so safe…

comic from pinterest

Hardware random number

generators use some physical graphics from ovdss.com
process that we trust
to be random.

Basic quantum random number generator:

shoot a photon through a crystal,
random noise in electronic circuits, image from wikipedia coin toss, image from wikipedia and see on which side it comes out
(can you trust it?)
schematic from qt.eu
HOW CAN YOU BE SURE IT’S RANDOM?

In the classical world, there is no way to guarantee true randomness:

we always need to trust
that our random number generator
does not output a pre-de ned sequence of numbers.
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DEVICE-INDEPENDENT
QUANTUM RANDOM NUMBER GENERATORS!

With the violation of a Bell inequality,

we CAN be sure:
no one in the universe can know in advance
what the outcomes of Alice and Bob
will be.

Bell inequalities can be used to build

true random number generators guaranteed by the fundamental laws of physics.

These random number generators are device-independent:

Alice and Bob only need to make a statistical test.
No need to trust the internal functioning of the devices.
A NEW TECHNOLOGY IN THE MAKING
In recent years, several experiments demonstrated the generation of device-independent
random number generators.

These prototypes are still too large and too slow to be commercially useful,
but progress is fast

Jian-Wei Pan Group. Nature vol. , ( ). NIST Group.

Device-independent quantum random-number generation. Nature Physics , - ( )

MORE TO COME NEXT WEEK!

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 SUMMARY
OF
TODAY’S LECTURE
IN A NUTSHELL

• the EPR paper: Einstein, Podolski, and Rosen argue that quantum mechanics
is not a complete theory, because it cannot describe reality in a local way
without instantaneous action at distance.
Nowadays, we say that quantum theory is not a local realistic theory.

• Bell’s theorem: the correlations in every local realistic theory must satisfy some conditions,
called Bell inequalities.

• Violation of Bell inequalities: quantum theory predict violations of Bell inequalities.

The violation has been convincingly observed in experiments.

• True randomness: the violation of Bell inequalities guarantees that the outcomes
of certain experiments are truly random.

• Device-independent random number generators: quantum mechanics allows us to build

random number generators that are guaranteed by the laws of physics.
A new technology of randomness is in the making!