Harvard Quantum Initiative Special Seminar
Thursday, April 18
4:00 PM
Jefferson 250
Elie Wolfe (Perimeter Institute)
Quantum Nonlocality as a challenge to Classical Causality: How Bell’s Theorem is advancing
Causal Inference and vice versa.
A signature example of the nonclassicality of quantum theory is codified in Bell's
Theorem, which certifies the nonlocal correlations arising from product measurements on an
entangled quantum state as defying any classical explanation. I'll interpret
Bell's Theorem as a statement about the existence of nonclassical "common
causes." By considering novel causal scenarios, beyond Bell scenarios, we gain
insight into the fundamental quantum nature of cause and effect. I'll show how
machine learning (causal discovery algorithms) are crashed by quantum statistics, and
I'll discuss my own effort to separate quantum correlations from their classical
counterparts in general causal structures. Our approach (unexpectedly) provides a complete
solution for classical causal inference, thereby substantially advancing that statistical
discipline. Finally, I'll explore quantifying genuinely multipartite entanglement by
asking which sorts of quantum causal structures a given state could have arisen from.
Based primarily on
arXiv:1609.00672<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__ar…SRmnrLA_tHD3v-Q6smI&e=>,
though also drawing on
arXiv:1707.06476<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__ar…
and
arXiv:1903.06311<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__ar…FRQuFZiadxvDSt1JMO0&e=>,
as well as unpublished results.
--
Clare Ploucha
Administrative Program Manager
Max Planck/Harvard Research Center for Quantum Optics
Department of Physics
17 Oxford Street, Jefferson 357
Cambridge, MA 02138
P: 617-495-3388