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Quantum theory is in principle compatible with scenarios where physical processes occur in an indefinite order, potentially yielding advantages in a broad range of information processing tasks. However, advantages in communication, the most…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-03-26 Xuanqiang Zhao , Benchi Zhao , Cyril Branciard , Giulio Chiribella

We present a reconstruction of finite-dimensional quantum theory where all of the postulates are stated in diagrammatic terms, making them intuitive. Equivalently, they are stated in category-theoretic terms, making them mathematically…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-04-28 John H. Selby , Carlo Maria Scandolo , Bob Coecke

The operational axiomatization of quantum theory can be regarded as a set of six epistemological rules for falsifying propositions of the theory. In particular, the Purification postulate-the only one that is not shared with classical…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-03-28 Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano

Processes with indefinite causal order can arise when quantum theory is locally valid and they allow accomplishing new informational tasks. Despite recent progress, the correlations allowed in such processes have not been clearly…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-03-18 Zixuan Liu , Ognyan Oreshkov

The idea that events obey a definite causal order is deeply rooted in our understanding of the world and at the basis of the very notion of time. But where does causal order come from, and is it a necessary property of nature? We address…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2013-02-15 Ognyan Oreshkov , Fabio Costa , Caslav Brukner

Quantum theory (QT) has been confirmed by numerous experiments, yet we still cannot fully grasp the meaning of the theory. As a consequence, the quantum world appears to us paradoxical. Here we shed new light on QT by having it follow from…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-02-12 Alessio Benavoli , Alessandro Facchini , Marco Zaffalon

Recent frameworks describing quantum mechanics in the absence of a global causal order admit the existence of causally indefinite processes, where it is impossible to ascribe causal order for events A and B. These frameworks even allow for…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-05-11 Simon Milz , Dominic Jurkschat , Felix A. Pollock , Kavan Modi

Recently, the possible existence of quantum processes with indefinite causal order has been extensively discussed, in particular using the formalism of process matrices. Here we give a new perspective on this question, by establishing a…

Starting from the observation that reversible processes cannot increase the purity of any input state, we study deterministic physical processes, which map a set of states to a set of pure states. Such a process must map any state to the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2010-06-30 Matthias Kleinmann , Hermann Kampermann , Tim Meyer , Dagmar Bruss

The act of describing how a physical process changes a system is the basis for understanding observed phenomena. For quantum-mechanical processes in particular, the affect of processes on quantum states profoundly advances our knowledge of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2017-10-20 Jen-Hsiang Hsieh , Shih-Hsuan Chen , Che-Ming Li

We derive a necessary and sufficient condition for a quantum process to be Markovian which coincides with the classical one in the relevant limit. Our condition unifies all previously known definitions for quantum Markov processes by…

Quantum mechanics---the theory describing the fundamental workings of nature---is famously counterintuitive: it predicts that a particle can be in two places at the same time, and that two remote particles can be inextricably and…

Physical processes in the quantum regime possess non-classical properties of quantum mechanics. However, methods for quantitatively identifying such processes are still lacking. Accordingly, in this study, we develop a framework for…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-01-01 Chung-Cheng Kuo , Shih-Hsuan Chen , Wei-Ting Lee , Hung-Ming Chen , He Lu , Che-Ming Li

The recently developed framework for quantum theory with no global causal order allows for quantum processes in which operations in local laboratories are neither causally ordered nor in a probabilistic mixture of definite causal orders.…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-09-21 Veronika Baumann , Časlav Brukner

Quantum mechanics allows processes to be superposed, leading to a genuinely quantum lack of causal structure. For example, the process known as the quantum switch applies two operations ${\cal A}$ and ${\cal B}$ in a superposition of the…

What does it mean for a causal structure to be `unknown'? Can we even talk about `repetitions' of an experiment without prior knowledge of causal relations? And under what conditions can we say that a set of processes with arbitrary,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-02-12 Fabio Costa , Jonathan Barrett , Sally Shrapnel

Quantum processes with indefinite causal order -- so-called causally nonseparable processes -- can exhibit various advantages over quantum circuits with a fixed or a well-defined causal structure. A natural question is how much…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-05-22 Yassine Benhaj , Kuntal Sengupta , Cyril Branciard

In theories of communication, it is usually presumed that the involved parties perform actions in a fixed causal order. However, practical and fundamental reasons can induce uncertainties in the causal order. Here we show that a maximal…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-11-20 Ding Jia , Fabio Costa

Quantum processes, such as quantum circuits, quantum memories, and quantum channels, are essential ingredients in almost all quantum information processing tasks. However, the characterization of these processes remains a daunting task due…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-04-16 Ye-Chao Liu , Jiangwei Shang , Xiao-Dong Yu , Xiangdong Zhang

The manipulation of quantum "resources" such as entanglement, coherence and magic states lies at the heart of quantum science and technology, empowering potential advantages over classical methods. In practice, a particularly important kind…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-08-07 Kun Fang , Zi-Wen Liu