Dissertation
Tropical Tensor Networks and Bell Inequalities: From Multipartite Nonlocality to Quantum Device Certification
Quantum computers promise computational capabilities beyond the reach of efficient classical methods, raising a central question: how can one rigorously certify nonclassical behavior in large-scale quantum devices under minimal assumptions?
- Author
- M. Hu
- Date
- 05 June 2026
- Links
- Thesis in Leiden Repository
Bell nonlocality, the strongest and most device-independent form of quantum correlation, provides a natural framework to address this question. This thesis develops mathematical and experimental tools to detect and characterize Bell nonlocality in many-body quantum systems, with a focus on scalable Bell-inequality constructions, and the use of Bell operators as practical benchmarks for quantum processors.We first introduce a tropical tensor network framework that recasts the optimization of classical bounds for multipartite Bell inequalities as a tensor contraction in tropical algebra, enabling the characterization of broad inequality families and an extension to the thermodynamic limit. Building on this, we develop a systematic theory of translation-invariant Bell inequalities in one dimension. We then study two-dimensional spin models on the square lattice, quantifying how open, periodic, and topologically nontrivial boundary conditions modify the strength of certifiable Bell violations.On the experimental side, we demonstrate certified multipartite Bell-operator correlations on a programmable superconducting processor, including a 73-qubit honeycomb model, by mapping Bell inequalities onto many-body Hamiltonians. We further introduce a bidirectional optimization framework that co-designs Bell inequalities and Hamiltonians for a given device, yielding stronger and more noise-resilient certification.