Discrimination of Non-Local Correlations.

In view of the importance of quantum non-locality in cryptography, quantum computation, and communication complexity, it is crucial to decide whether a given correlation exhibits non-locality or not. As proved by Pitowski, this problem is NP-complete, and is thus computationally intractable unless NP is equal to P. In this paper, we first prove that the Euclidean distance of given correlations from the local polytope can be computed in polynomial time with arbitrary fixed error, granted the access to a certain oracle; namely, given a fixed error, we derive two upper bounds on the running time. The first bound is linear in the number of measurements. The second bound scales with the number of measurements to the sixth power. The former holds only for a very high number of measurements, and is never observed in the performed numerical tests. We, then, introduce a simple algorithm for simulating the oracle. In all of the considered numerical tests, the simulation of the oracle contributes with a multiplicative factor to the overall running time and, thus, does not affect the sixth-power law of the oracle-assisted algorithm.

Epistemic view of quantum states and communication complexity of quantum channels.

The communication complexity of a quantum channel is the minimal amount of classical communication required for classically simulating a process of state preparation, transmission through the channel and subsequent measurement. It establishes a limit on the power of quantum communication in terms of classical resources. We show that classical simulations employing a finite amount of communication can be derived from a special class of hidden variable theories where quantum states represent statistical knowledge about the classical state and not an element of reality. This special class has attracted strong interest very recently. The communication cost of each derived simulation is given by the mutual information between the quantum state and the classical state of the parent hidden variable theory. Finally, we find that the communication complexity for single qubits is smaller than 1.28 bits. The previous known upper bound was 1.85 bits.

Dynamics of a qubit as a classical stochastic process with time-correlated noise: minimal measurement invasiveness.

So far it has been shown that the quantum dynamics cannot be described as a classical Markov process unless the number of classical states is uncountably infinite. In this Letter, we present a stochastic model with time-correlated noise that exactly reproduces any unitary evolution of a qubit and requires just four classical states. The invasive updating of only 1 bit during a measurement accounts for the quantum violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities. Unlike in a pilot-wave theory, the stochastic forces governing the jumps among the four states do not depend on the quantum state but only on the unitary evolution. This model is used to derive a local hidden variable model, augmented by 1 bit of classical communication, for simulating entangled Bell states.

Control of transient synchronization with external stimuli.

A network of coupled chaotic oscillators can switch spontaneously to a state of collective synchronization at some critical coupling strength. We show that for a locally coupled network of units with coexisting quiescence and chaotic spiking states, set slightly below the critical coupling value, the collective excitable or bistable states of synchronization arise in response to a stimulus applied to a single node. We provide an explanation of this behavior and show that it is due to a combination of the dynamical properties of a single node and the coupling topology. By the use of entropy as a collective indicator, we present a new method for controlling the transient synchronization.