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Probabilistic theories stable under teleportation

Quantum Physics 2026-03-24 v1

Abstract

A long-standing problem in the foundations of quantum mechanics is to identify a physical principle that explains why algebraically maximal violations of Bell inequalities can generally not be achieved in Nature. One recently proposed approach considers iterated Bell tests, where a Bell test is performed on a state that has undergone several rounds of entanglement swapping. Obtaining large violations in this scenario is more demanding, because it requires a theory to have both highly entangled states and highly entangled measurements. It has been conjectured that the maximal quantum mechanical Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH)-value of 222\sqrt2 might be optimal for any probabilistic theory which, like quantum mechanics, maintains its CHSH-value after an arbitrary number of rounds of entanglement swapping. However, in a previous paper, we have exhibited a first example of a probabilistic theory that can sustain a CHSH value of 44 in this setting. In this work, further investigating this property, we give a classification of all general probabilistic theories (GPTs) whose CHSH value is stable in the above sense. The problem reduces to a representation-theoretic condition that allows for exactly seven solutions. The GPT from our previous work showed some counter-intuitive features, e.g. that the local state space had a higher dimension than seemed necessary to realize CHSH tests. The classification shows that this is necessarily so. Along the way, we generalize the concept of self-testing to GPTs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.21347,
  title  = {Probabilistic theories stable under teleportation},
  author = {Lionel J. Dmello and David Gross},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.21347},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

18 pages, 7 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:32:23.206Z