Resilience of Entanglement-Induced Coordination in Adversarial Environments: The Team-Based Quantum Sabotage Game

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum game framework where entangled teams coordinate in adversarial settings, demonstrating that entanglement induces nonclassical, noise-resilient coordination patterns without increasing expected utility.

Contribution

It develops a formal quantum game-theoretic model for adversarial multi-agent decision-making, analyzing entanglement-assisted coordination under realistic noise conditions and distinguishing it from classical strategies.

Findings

Multipartite entanglement reshapes finite-run joint-action distributions.

Quantum correlations persist under realistic noise models.

Entanglement enables nonclassical coordination without utility increase.

Abstract

Quantumgametheoryextendsclassical strategic decision-making by incorporating quantum superposition, entanglement, and measurement-induced randomness into competitive interactions. This paper introduces a team-based Quantum Sabotage Game (QSG), in which classical and quantum-enhanced teams engage in adversarial decision-making under identical information constraints. Unlike baseline classical teams, whose members act independently, quantum teams employ entanglement-assisted coor dination, generating structured correlations among decentralized actions without classical communication. We develop a formal quantum game-theoretic framework and analyze multi-agent strategies using Bell and Wentangled states, benchmarked against size-equivalent classical teams. Using numerical simulations, we compare outcome distributions, correlation structure, and robustness under ideal conditions, standard quantum noise models, and a device-inspired, reproducible hardware-like noise model via the Qiskit Aer FakeKyiv backend. While the symmetric payoff structure precludes any asymptotic increase in expected utility, multipartite entanglement, particularly W-state correlations, reshapes the finite-run joint-action distribution, producing nonclassical coordination patterns rather than an expectation-value advantage. These patterns persist under realistic noise, demonstrating that the resulting correlation signatures remain observable and differ from those produced by independent classical sampling. These results clarify the operational role of entanglement in adversarial environments, distinguishing correlation-based coordination from expectation-value advantage, and establish the Quantum Sabotage Game as a testbed for studying noise-resilient multi-agent quantum decision-making.