Related papers: Causal orders, quantum circuits and spacetime: dis…

Classically the causal order of two timelike separated events A and B is fixed -- either A before B or B before A. This is no longer true in quantum theory, where it is possible to encounter superpositions of causal orders. The quantum…

Quantum supermaps are transformations that map quantum operations to quantum operations. It is known that quantum supermaps which respect a definite, predefined causal order between their input operations correspond to fixed-order quantum…

The constraints arising for a general set of causal relations, both classically and quantumly, are still poorly understood. As a step in exploring this question, we consider a coherently controlled superposition of "direct-cause" and…

Researchers have long been aiming to understand how the characteristics of Quantum Theory and General Relativity combine to account for regimes in their interface. One reason why this is a hard task is how differently the theories approach…

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…

In quantum mechanics events can happen in no definite causal order: in practice this can be verified by measuring a causal witness, in the same way that an entanglement witness verifies entanglement. Indefinite causal order can be observed…

The landscape of causal relations that can hold among a set of systems in quantum theory is richer than in classical physics. In particular, a pair of time-ordered systems can be related as cause and effect or as the effects of a common…

Treating the time of an event as a quantum variable, we derive a scheme in which superpositions in time are used to perform operations in an indefinite causal order. We use some aspects of a recently developed space-time-symmetric formalism…

In general relativity, the causal structure between events is dynamical, but it is definite and observer-independent; events are point-like and the membership of an event A in the future or past light-cone of an event B is an…

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…

We show that quantum theory allows for transformations of black boxes that cannot be realized by inserting the input black boxes within a circuit in a pre-defined causal order. The simplest example of such a transformation is the classical…

In a quantum computer, creating superpositions of quantum bits (qubits) in different states can lead to a speed-up over classical computers [1], but quantum mechanics also allows for the superposition of quantum circuits [2]. In fact, it…

The causal order of events need not be fixed: whether a bus arrives before or after another at a certain stop can depend on other variables -- like traffic. Coherent quantum control of causal order is possible too and is a useful resource…

We develop a new formalism for constructing probabilities associated to the causal ordering of events in quantum theory, where by an event we mean the emergence of a measurement record on a detector. We start with constructing probabilities…

Causal nonseparability refers to processes where events take place in a coherent superposition of different causal orders. These may be the key resource for experimental violations of causal inequalities and have been recently identified as…

We explore indefinite causal order between events in the context of quasiclassical spacetimes in superposition. We introduce several new quantifiers to measure the degree of indefiniteness of the causal order for an arbitrary finite number…

Quantum causality extends the conventional notion of fixed causal structure by allowing channels and operations to act in an indefinite causal order. The importance of such an indefinite causal order ranges from the foundational---e.g.…

Requiring that the causal structure between different parties is well-defined imposes constraints on the correlations they can establish, which define so-called causal correlations. Some of these are known to have a "dynamical" causal order…

In this work, we give rigorous operational meaning to superposition of causal orders. This fits within a recent effort to understand how the standard operational perspective on quantum theory could be extended to include indefinite…

It was recently suggested that causal structures are both dynamical, because of general relativity, and indefinite, due to quantum theory. The process matrix formalism furnishes a framework for quantum mechanics on indefinite causal…