Probabilistic analysis of three-player symmetric quantum games played using the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm setting

TL;DR

This paper extends a probabilistic framework to analyze three-player symmetric quantum games using the EPR-Bohm setting, revealing how quantum correlations can alter classical game outcomes, especially in the Prisoner's Dilemma.

Contribution

It introduces a unified approach for classical and quantum three-player games using joint probabilities in the EPR-Bohm setting, highlighting the impact of non-factorizable probabilities on game outcomes.

Findings

Quantum correlations can change game outcomes in three-player PD.

Non-factorizable probabilities enable escape from classical game results.

Contrasts with two-player PD where such escape is not possible.

Abstract

This paper extends our probabilistic framework for two-player quantum games to the mutliplayer case, while giving a unified perspective for both classical and quantum games. Considering joint probabilities in the standard Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm (EPR-Bohm) setting for three observers, we use this setting in order to play general three-player non-cooperative symmetric games. We analyze how the peculiar non-factorizable joint probabilities provided by the EPR-Bohm setting can change the outcome of a game, while requiring that the quantum game attains a classical interpretation for factorizable joint probabilities. In this framework, our analysis of the three-player generalized Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) shows that the players can indeed escape from the classical outcome of the game, because of non-factorizable joint probabilities that the EPR setting can provide. This surprising result for three-player PD contrasts strikingly with our earlier result for two-player PD, played in the same framework, in which even non-factorizable joint probabilities do not result in escaping from the classical consequence of the game.