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The standard model of quantum circuits assumes operations are applied in a fixed sequential "causal" order. In recent years, the possibility of relaxing this constraint to obtain causally indefinite computations has received significant…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-08-20 Alastair A. Abbott , Mehdi Mhalla , Pierre Pocreau

In classical physics, events follow a definite causal order: the past influences the future, but not the reverse. Quantum theory, however, permits superpositions of causal orders -- so-called indefinite causal orders -- which can provide…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-04-29 Carla M. D. Richter , Michael Antesberger , Huan Cao , Philip Walther , Lee A. Rozema

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…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-09-07 Nicola Pinzani , Stefano Gogioso

Though the topic of causal inference is typically considered in the context of classical statistical models, recent years have seen great interest in extending causal inference techniques to quantum and generalized theories. Causal…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2023-11-16 Isaac Friend , Aleks Kissinger

From the modern perspective of causal inference, Bell's theorem -- a fundamental signature of quantum theory -- is a particular case where quantum correlations are incompatible with the classical theory of causality, and the generalization…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-05-30 Pedro Lauand , Bereket Ngussie Bekele , Elie Wolfe

Quantum processes with indefinite causal structure emerge when we wonder which are the most general evolutions, allowed by quantum theory, of a set of local systems which are not assumed to be in any particular causal order. These processes…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-02-07 Luca Apadula , Alessandro Bisio , Paolo Perinotti

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…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-03-28 Esteban Castro-Ruiz , Flaminia Giacomini , Časlav Brukner

Understanding the interface between quantum and relativistic theories is crucial for fundamental and practical advances, especially given that key physical concepts such as causality take different forms in these theories. Bell's no-go…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-10-08 V. Vilasini , Renato Renner

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…

We study the notion of causal orders for the cases of (classical and quantum) circuits and spacetime events. We show that every circuit can be immersed into a classical spacetime, preserving the compatibility between the two causal…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-06-08 Nikola Paunkovic , Marko Vojinovic

Inferring causal relations from experimental observations is of primal importance in science. Instrumental tests provide an essential tool for that aim, as they allow one to estimate causal dependencies even in the presence of unobserved…

In this paper, we generalize Pearl's do-calculus to an Intuitionistic setting called $j$-stable causal inference inside a topos of sheaves. Our framework is an elaboration of the recently proposed framework of Topos Causal Models (TCMs),…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2025-10-22 Sridhar Mahadevan

Born in the intersection between quantum mechanics and general relativity, indefinite causal structure is the idea that in the continuum of time, some sets of events do not have an inherent causal order between them. Process matrices,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-10-08 Omri Shmueli

In a conventional circuit for quantum machine learning, the quantum gates used to encode the input parameters and the variational parameters are constructed with a fixed order. The resulting output function, which can be expressed in the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-03-07 Nannan Ma , P. Z. Zhao , Jiangbin Gong

The quantum switch, the canonical example of a process with indefinite causal order, has been claimed to provide various advantages over processes with definite causal orders for some particular tasks in the field of quantum metrology. In…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-06-27 Raphaël Mothe , Cyril Branciard , Alastair A. Abbott

Modern approaches to causal modeling give a central role to interventions, which require the active input of an observer and introduces an explicit `causal arrow of time'. Causal models typically adopt a mechanistic interpretation,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-08-23 Jacques Pienaar

We show that quantum oracles provide an advantage over classical oracles for answering classical counterfactual questions in causal models, or equivalently, for identifying unknown causal parameters such as distributions over functional…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-12-16 Ciarán M. Gilligan-Lee , Yìlè Yīng , Jonathan Richens , David Schmid

The concept of causality has a controversial history. The question of whether it is possible to represent and address causal problems with probability theory, or if fundamentally new mathematics such as the do-calculus is required has been…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-10-22 Finnian Lattimore , David Rohde

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

Computational models typically assume that operations are applied in a fixed sequential order. In recent years several works have looked at relaxing this assumption, considering computations without any fixed causal structure and showing…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-08-21 Alastair A. Abbott , Mehdi Mhalla , Pierre Pocreau