English

Multipartite Causal Correlations: Polytopes and Inequalities

Quantum Physics 2016-10-06 v2

Abstract

We consider the most general correlations that can be obtained by a group of parties whose causal relations are well-defined, although possibly probabilistic and dependent on past parties' operations. We show that, for any fixed number of parties and inputs and outputs for each party, the set of such correlations forms a convex polytope, whose vertices correspond to deterministic strategies, and whose (nontrivial) facets define so-called causal inequalities. We completely characterize the simplest tripartite polytope in terms of its facet inequalities, propose generalizations of some inequalities to scenarios with more parties, and show that our tripartite inequalities can be violated within the process matrix formalism, where quantum mechanics is locally valid but no global causal structure is assumed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1608.01528,
  title  = {Multipartite Causal Correlations: Polytopes and Inequalities},
  author = {Alastair A. Abbott and Christina Giarmatzi and Fabio Costa and Cyril Branciard},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.01528},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

14 pages and 1 supplementary CDF file

R2 v1 2026-06-22T15:12:14.339Z