English

Globe-hopping

Quantum Physics 2020-07-06 v1 Discrete Mathematics Mathematical Physics Classical Analysis and ODEs math.MP

Abstract

We consider versions of the grasshopper problem (Goulko and Kent, 2017) on the circle and the sphere, which are relevant to Bell inequalities. For a circle of circumference 2π2\pi, we show that for unconstrained lawns of any length and arbitrary jump lengths, the supremum of the probability for the grasshopper's jump to stay on the lawn is one. For antipodal lawns, which by definition contain precisely one of each pair of opposite points and have length π\pi, we show this is true except when the jump length ϕ\phi is of the form πpq\pi\frac{p}{q} with p,qp,q coprime and pp odd. For these jump lengths we show the optimal probability is 11/q1 - 1/q and construct optimal lawns. For a pair of antipodal lawns, we show that the optimal probability of jumping from one onto the other is 11/q1 - 1/q for p,qp,q coprime, pp odd and qq even, and one in all other cases. For an antipodal lawn on the sphere, it is known (Kent and Pital\'ua-Garc\'ia, 2014) that if ϕ=π/q\phi = \pi/q, where qNq \in \mathbb N, then the optimal retention probability of 11/q1-1/q for the grasshopper's jump is provided by a hemispherical lawn. We show that in all other cases where 0<ϕ<π/20<\phi < \pi/2, hemispherical lawns are not optimal, disproving the hemispherical colouring maximality hypotheses (Kent and Pital\'ua-Garc\'ia, 2014). We discuss the implications for Bell experiments and related cryptographic tests.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2001.06442,
  title  = {Globe-hopping},
  author = {Dmitry Chistikov and Olga Goulko and Adrian Kent and Mike Paterson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.06442},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T13:14:14.837Z