English

Classical vs. quantum satisfiability in linear constraint systems modulo an integer

Quantum Physics 2019-11-27 v1 Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

A system of linear constraints can be unsatisfiable and yet admit a solution in the form of quantum observables whose correlated outcomes satisfy the constraints. Recently, it has been claimed that such a satisfiability gap can be demonstrated using tensor products of generalized Pauli observables in odd dimensions. We provide an explicit proof that no quantum-classical satisfiability gap in any linear constraint system can be achieved using these observables. We prove a few other results for linear constraint systems modulo d > 2. We show that a characterization of the existence of quantum solutions when d is prime, due to Cleve et al, holds with a small modification for arbitrary d. We identify a key property of some linear constraint systems, called phase-commutation, and give a no-go theorem for the existence of quantum solutions to constraint systems for odd d whenever phase-commutation is present. As a consequence, all natural generalizations of the Peres-Mermin magic square and pentagram to odd prime d do not exhibit a satisfiability gap.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1911.11171,
  title  = {Classical vs. quantum satisfiability in linear constraint systems modulo an integer},
  author = {Hammam Qassim and Joel. J. Wallman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.11171},
  year   = {2019}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T12:26:54.030Z