Parity erasure: a foundational principle for indefinite causal order

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Liu, Zixuan, Oreshkov, Ognyan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Liu, Zixuan
Oreshkov, Ognyan
author_facet Liu, Zixuan
Oreshkov, Ognyan
contents Processes with indefinite causal order can arise when quantum theory is locally valid and they allow accomplishing new informational tasks. Despite recent progress, the correlations allowed in such processes have not been clearly understood. Here, we propose to study the constraints on information exchange through such processes in a paradigm of locally sequential operations. In this paradigm, we identify an information-theoretic principle constraining the correlations, termed parity erasure, which follows from the local validity of causality. We show that this principle completely characterizes the local-tomography representation of higher-order processes with indefinite causal order: among all multipartite channels, the ones describing valid higher-order processes are those and only those whose input-output correlations respect parity erasure. This approach reveals a fundamental property of information exchange in scenarios with indefinite causal structure and opens a new arena for exploring their potential applications.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_08635
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Parity erasure: a foundational principle for indefinite causal order
Liu, Zixuan
Oreshkov, Ognyan
Quantum Physics
Processes with indefinite causal order can arise when quantum theory is locally valid and they allow accomplishing new informational tasks. Despite recent progress, the correlations allowed in such processes have not been clearly understood. Here, we propose to study the constraints on information exchange through such processes in a paradigm of locally sequential operations. In this paradigm, we identify an information-theoretic principle constraining the correlations, termed parity erasure, which follows from the local validity of causality. We show that this principle completely characterizes the local-tomography representation of higher-order processes with indefinite causal order: among all multipartite channels, the ones describing valid higher-order processes are those and only those whose input-output correlations respect parity erasure. This approach reveals a fundamental property of information exchange in scenarios with indefinite causal structure and opens a new arena for exploring their potential applications.
title Parity erasure: a foundational principle for indefinite causal order
topic Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.08635