Type: Article
Publication Date: 2021-05-26
Citations: 24
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevx.11.021043
Causality is a seminal concept in science: Any research discipline, from sociology and medicine to physics and chemistry, aims at understanding the causes that could explain the correlations observed among some measured variables. While several methods exist to characterize classical causal models, no general construction is known for the quantum case. In this work, we present quantum inflation, a systematic technique to falsify if a given quantum causal model is compatible with some observed correlations. We demonstrate the power of the technique by reproducing known results and solving open problems for some paradigmatic examples of causal networks. Our results may find applications in many fields: from the characterization of correlations in quantum networks to the study of quantum effects in thermodynamic and biological processes.12 MoreReceived 29 May 2020Revised 1 December 2020Accepted 18 February 2021DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.021043Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasDegree correlationsNonlocalityQuantum foundationsQuantum networksQuantum theoryQuantum Information