Experimental demonstration of the criterion for the prepare-and-measure nonclassicality

TL;DR

This paper experimentally validates a recently proposed criterion for identifying nonclassicality in prepare-and-measure quantum systems, confirming its effectiveness across multiple quantum state sets.

Contribution

The study provides the first experimental validation of the criterion for prepare-and-measure nonclassicality, demonstrating its practical applicability.

Findings

Experimental results agree with theoretical predictions

52 quantum state sets tested successfully

Validates the criterion's potential for future research

Abstract

The prepare-and-measure theory is a new type of quantum paradox that reveals the incompatibility between classical theory and quantum mechanics in terms of the dimensionality of physical systems.Just as the Horodecki criterion can determine whether given quantum states are capable of exhibiting Bell nonclassicality, a similar criterion is needed for the prepare-and-measure theory to determine whether given uantum states can exhibit the prepare-and-measure nonclassicality. Recently, Poderini et al. [Phys. Rev. Research 2, 043106 (2020)] presented such a criterion for the prepare-and-measure nonclassicality. In this work, we experimentally validate this criterion -- 52 different sets of quantum states are prepared and tested one by one using this criterion to determine whether they can exhibit the prepare-and-measure nonclassicality, and the experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical expectations. The criterion experimentally verified here has the potential to be widely used in future research on the prepare-and-measure nonclassicality.