A theory-independent bound saturated by quantum mechanics

Abstract

Tsirelson's original inequality for the precession protocol, first introduced for the harmonic oscillator but applicable to all uniformly-precessing systems, serves as a monopartite test of quantumness. Given that the system is undergoing a uniform precession, the signs of the positions of a classical oscillator must satisfy that inequality, which is violated by certain quantum states. We consider this inequality for measurements with finitely many outcomes in a theory-independent manner. We derive a general bound which depends only on the minimum positive and negative values of the spectrum of the observable. Given any such two values, we construct a quantum observable that saturates this bound. A notable example is the angular momentum of a spin-$3/2$ particle. We also relate our findings to the recently-introduced notion of constrained conditional probabilities.

Locations

• arXiv (Cornell University) - View - PDF