Abstract
Using weak quantum measurements one can determine the direction in which a large ensemble of spins, as in a classical magnet, points. Assume Alice and Bob share a large ensemble of N pairs of spin-\(\frac{1}{2}\). If Alice measures all her spins, all along the same direction, she prepares at a distance an ensemble of spins for Bob which, because of statistical fluctuations, have a magnetic moment of the order \(\sqrt{N}\). By making N large enough, this magnetic moment can be made arbitrarily large, indicating an apparent possibility to signal. However, we show that an arbitrarily large magnetic moment is not necessarily classical in the sense that it might be fundamentally impossible to determine in which direction it points. We also consider stronger than quantum correlations and show that Tsirelson’s bound follows from the physical assumption that in the macroscopic limit all measurements are compatible and that this should not lead to signaling.
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Notes
- 1.
Note that it is not necessary to symmetrize \(\Psi _{in}^x\); indeed, the system-pointer interaction being symmetric, a symmetrized \(\Psi _{in}^x\) would lead to the same effect.
- 2.
Note that according to quantum theory \(B_0\) and \(B_1\) (i.e. \(\sum _j\sigma _z ^j\) and \(\sum _j\sigma _x ^j\)) can be measured simultaneously. Indeed, a weak measurement of \(B_0\) with a pointer’ spread of the order \(\sqrt{N}\) essentially doesn’t perturb the quantum state, hence can be followed by a similar weak measurement of \(B_1\). Both measurements provide pretty good information about \(B_0\) and \(B_1\), respectively. Note furthermore that this process can be extended to series of measurements, similarly to [9].
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Acknowledgments
This work profited from numerous comments from colleagues from Bristol and Barcelona and discussions after my presentation at the DIQIP meeting in May 2013. I am especially in debt to Sandu Popescu for numerous stimulating discussions and debates and to Daniel Rohrlich for sending me his draft [2] before publication. Financial support by the European projects ERA-NET DIQIP and ERC-AG MEC are gratefully acknowledged.
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Gisin, N. (2017). Quantum Measurement of Spins and Magnets, and the Classical Limit of PR-Boxes. In: Bertlmann, R., Zeilinger, A. (eds) Quantum [Un]Speakables II. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38987-5_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38987-5_18
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