Quantum networks reveal quantum nonlocality

Abstract

The results of local measurements on some composite quantum systems cannot be reproduced classically. This impossibility, known as quantum nonlocality, represents a milestone in the foundations of quantum theory. Quantum nonlocality is also a valuable resource for information-processing tasks, for example, quantum communication, quantum key distribution, quantum state estimation or randomness extraction. Still, deciding whether a quantum state is nonlocal remains a challenging problem. Here, we introduce a novel approach to this question: we study the nonlocal properties of quantum states when distributed and measured in networks. We show, using our framework, how any one-way entanglement distillable state leads to nonlocal correlations and prove that quantum nonlocality is a non-additive resource, which can be activated. There exist states, local at the single-copy level, that become nonlocal when taking several copies of them. Our results imply that the nonlocality of quantum states strongly depends on the measurement context. © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.