Higher-order quantum processes respecting closed labs in a spacetime have quantum controlled causal order

TL;DR

This paper rigorously characterizes the class of higher-order quantum processes that can be physically realized within classical spacetime, establishing a connection between abstract process frameworks and practical quantum protocols under relativistic causality.

Contribution

It provides a top-down derivation showing QC-QCs as the maximal class of physically realizable higher-order quantum processes respecting closed labs and relativistic causality.

Findings

QC-QCs are exactly the class of processes realizable in classical spacetime.

The work rules out more general non-causal processes under the closed-labs assumption.

Develops techniques for characterizing process box protocols and explores implications for spacetime quantum protocols.

Abstract

In quantum causality and quantum information, there is a vast landscape of abstract quantum protocols permitting cyclic or non-acyclic causal structures between operations, including frameworks for indefinite causal order and higher-order quantum processes such as process matrices. A longstanding open question is what is the largest class of abstract processes that admit physical realisations without post-selection. In this work, we provide a rigorous answer using a top-down approach grounded in relativistic causality principles. Building on the framework of causal boxes, which characterise the most general quantum information-processing protocols compatible with fixed background spacetimes, we formalise additional constraints (Acting Once + Local Order) capturing the closed-laboratory assumptions of the process matrix framework at a fine-grained spacetime level. We prove that any protocol in a classical acyclic spacetime satisfying these conditions is behaviourally equivalent to a quantum circuit with quantum control of causal order (QC-QC), providing a top-down derivation of QC-QCs from physical principles. Our results show that QC-QCs constitute precisely the class of higher-order quantum processes, including those with indefinite order, that can be physically realised within classical spacetime, ruling out more general non-causal processes under the closed-labs assumption. This clarifies the relationship between abstract higher-order process matrix frameworks and experimentally accessible quantum protocols, as well as the interplay between coarse-grained cyclic and fine-grained acyclic operational causal structures. We also develop characterisation techniques for process box protocols that lead to new causality-based open questions concerning spacetime quantum protocols and relativistic quantum experiments.