21–26 Jun 2026
U. Ottawa - Learning Crossroads (CRX) Building
America/Toronto timezone
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Does the NPA hierarchy attain the commuting operator value at some finite level?

23 Jun 2026, 10:15
30m
U. Ottawa - Learning Crossroads (CRX) Building

U. Ottawa - Learning Crossroads (CRX) Building

100 Louis-Pasteur Private, Ottawa, ON K1N 9N3
Invited Speaker / Conférencier(ère) invité(e) Division for Quantum Information / Division de l'information quantique (DQI / DIQ) (DQI) T1-9 | (DIQ)

Speaker

Prof. Connor Paddock (University of Calgary)

Description

The NPA hierarchy, of Navascues, Pironio, and Acin, is a widely used tool for analyzing nonlocality across a range of settings in quantum information science. In the context of nonlocal games, this hierarchy of semidefinite programs (SDPs) provides a (non-increasing) sequence of upper bounds, converging (in the limit) to the commuting operator value. In fact, a corollary of the landmark MIP*=RE result employs the NPA hierarchy to conclude that there are nonlocal games for which the quantum (entangled) value is strictly less than the commuting operator value, providing a separation between the quantum and commuting operator models for quantum correlations. Despite much recent advancement, a fundamental question about the value of NPA hierarchy remained open. Given a nonlocal game, does there exist a (finite) level for which the NPA hierarchy attains the commuting operator value? Perhaps surprisingly, a positive and negative answer to this question is consistent with the recent undecidability results for the quantum and commuting operator values. In this talk, I will show that the above question has a negative answer. Moreover, I will discuss how the answer to the above question follows from a seemingly unrelated question about the computability of the commuting operator value.

Keyword-1 nonlocal games
Keyword-2 quantum complexity classes

Author

Prof. Connor Paddock (University of Calgary)

Presentation materials

There are no materials yet.