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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Santos, Leonardo S. V., Tirler, Peter, Meth, Michael, Gerster, Lukas, John, Manuel, Pareek, Keshav, Gollerthan, Tim, Ringbauer, Martin, Gühne, Otfried
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.14191
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author Santos, Leonardo S. V.
Tirler, Peter
Meth, Michael
Gerster, Lukas
John, Manuel
Pareek, Keshav
Gollerthan, Tim
Ringbauer, Martin
Gühne, Otfried
author_facet Santos, Leonardo S. V.
Tirler, Peter
Meth, Michael
Gerster, Lukas
John, Manuel
Pareek, Keshav
Gollerthan, Tim
Ringbauer, Martin
Gühne, Otfried
contents Quantum memories are key components of emerging quantum technologies. They are designed to store quantum states and retrieve them on demand without losing features such as superposition and entanglement. Verifying that a memory preserves these features is indispensable for applications such as quantum computation, cryptography and networks, yet no general and assumption-free method has been available. Here, we present a device-independent approach for certifying black-box quantum memories, requiring no trust in any part of the experimental setup. We do so by probing quantum systems at two points in time and then confronting the observed temporal correlations against classical causal models through violations of causal inequalities. We perform a proof-of-principle experiment in a trapped-ion quantum processor, where we certify 35 ms of a qubit memory. Our method establishes temporal correlations and causal modelling as practical and powerful tool for benchmarking key ingredients of quantum technologies, such as quantum gates or implementations of algorithms.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_14191
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Device-independent quantum memory certification in two-point measurement experiments
Santos, Leonardo S. V.
Tirler, Peter
Meth, Michael
Gerster, Lukas
John, Manuel
Pareek, Keshav
Gollerthan, Tim
Ringbauer, Martin
Gühne, Otfried
Quantum Physics
Quantum memories are key components of emerging quantum technologies. They are designed to store quantum states and retrieve them on demand without losing features such as superposition and entanglement. Verifying that a memory preserves these features is indispensable for applications such as quantum computation, cryptography and networks, yet no general and assumption-free method has been available. Here, we present a device-independent approach for certifying black-box quantum memories, requiring no trust in any part of the experimental setup. We do so by probing quantum systems at two points in time and then confronting the observed temporal correlations against classical causal models through violations of causal inequalities. We perform a proof-of-principle experiment in a trapped-ion quantum processor, where we certify 35 ms of a qubit memory. Our method establishes temporal correlations and causal modelling as practical and powerful tool for benchmarking key ingredients of quantum technologies, such as quantum gates or implementations of algorithms.
title Device-independent quantum memory certification in two-point measurement experiments
topic Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.14191