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# All multipartite Bell correlation inequalities for two dichotomic observables per site

## I Introduction

Entanglement has not only been a key issue in the ongoing debate about the foundations of quantum mechanics, started by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen in 1935 . It also plays a crucial role in the young field of quantum information theory. Here entangled states are one of the basic ingredients of quantum information processing, due to their role as a resource in quantum key distribution, super dense coding, quantum teleportation and quantum error correction (cf.). Although general structural knowledge about entanglement has improved dramatically in the last few years, there are still many open problems. For example, there is still no efficient general method to decide whether a given state is entangled or not.

The first, and for a long time also the only mathematically sharp criteria for entanglement were the Bell inequalities . They provided the first possibility to distinguish experimentally between quantum mechanical predictions and those of local realistic models. But although Bell inequalities have been known for more than thirty years , our knowledge about the precise border between the classical and quantum mechanical accessible region is still mainly restricted to the simplest non-trivial cases. Best known is the case of two sites, at each of which two dichotomic observables are chosen. This is characterized completely by the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) version of Bell’s inequalities , in the sense that the inequalities are satisfied if and only if a local classical model exists . Finding a complete set of linear inequalities in more complicated situations (more sites, more observables, more outcomes) turns out to be a very difficult problem in the sense of computational complexity . There is only very little knowledge about Bell type inequalities beyond the CHSH case . Though numerical studies yield a large number of inequalities , for most of them it is neither known by how much they can be violated in quantum theory nor is there a general characterization admitting further investigations.

We were therefore quite surprised ourselves at finding an infinite sequence of multipartite correlation settings for which we could develop the theory to be as explicit and complete as in the CHSH case. Our setting generalizes the CHSH-setting to an arbitrary number $`n`$ rather than two different sites, but retains the constraints of just two observables per site with just two outcomes each. Thus each of the $`n`$-participants has the choice of two observables, each of which can take the values $`+1`$ or $`1`$. For any choice of observables we then consider the expectation value of the product of all $`n`$ signs (a “full” correlation function). A Bell inequality is a linear constraint on the set of all such expectations, which is valid whenever the correlations can be obtained from a local classical model, and which cannot be written as a convex combination of other such constraints. Examples are the CHSH inequality  for $`n=2`$ and their generalizations going back to Mermin and others  leading to a single inequality for arbitrary $`n`$.

We remark that this problem setting could be generalized to include the expectations not only of the product of all $`n`$ signs, but also the products of subsets of signs ( “restricted” correlation functions). These data would be sufficient to reconstruct the full joint probability distributions of signs for all choices of observables. However, most of the derivations in this paper do not generalize to this setting, and it is not yet clear which statements would still be valid (maybe with a different proof). When we talk of the existence of a classical model, however, it is understood that such a model would also determine all restricted correlation functions. The omission of restricted correlation functions from our setting only means that we do not consider constraints depending on them.

For this class of multipartite correlations we obtained the following results:

* We construct a set of $`2^{2^n}`$ Bell inequalities, and show its completeness: the correlations considered allow a local classical model if and only if all these inequalities are satisfied (Sec. III).
* The convex set of collections of classical correlation functions is a $`2^n`$-dimensional hyper-octahedron, which can be described alternatively by a single nonlinear inequality (Sec. III).
* We discuss the symmetries connecting different inequalities and develop a construction scheme, which yields all $`2^{2^n}`$ equalities by successive substitutions into the CHSH inequality (Sec. IV).
* We reduce the computation of the maximal quantum violations of each Bell inequality to a simple variational problem with just one free variable per site. The maxima are already attained in qubit systems, more specifically for the $`n`$-party generalization of the GHZ state , with a choice of observables depending on the inequality under consideration (Sec.V).
* We extend this method to a characterization of the convex body of quantum mechanically attainable correlation functions in terms of its extreme points, which are also found in the generalized GHZ state. These results are analogous to those of Tsirelson  for the bipartite case.
* We characterize the Mermin inequality as that Bell inequality, which can be violated by the widest margin in quantum theory.
* Sec.VI settles the relationship between the correlation Bell inequalities and another important entanglement property. We show that for states having positive partial transposes with respect to all their subsystems, all $`2^{2^n}`$ inequalities are satisfied, so the correlations in such quantum states can be explained in the context of a local realistic model. This extends our earlier result  for Mermin’s inequalities, and is further supporting evidence for a recent conjecture by Peres , namely that positivity of partial transposes should generally imply the existence of local realistic models.

In the appendix we will discuss some of the general results obtained in the sections III, IV, V in more detail for the special cases $`n=3,4`$.

## II Bell’s inequalities and convex geometry

Before entering the discussion of Bell inequalities in our special context it is useful to recall some geometric structures of the general problem and basic facts concerning the duality of convex polytopes.

Consider a system decomposed into $`n`$ independent subsystems. Suppose further that on each of these subsystems one out of $`m`$ $`v`$-valued observables is measured. Thus each of the $`m^n`$ different experimental setups may lead to $`v^n`$ different outcomes, so that the raw experimental data are made up of $`(mv)^n`$ probabilities. These numbers form a vector $`\xi `$ lying in a space of dimension $`(mv)^n`$ (minus a few for normalization constraints). Classically, in a local realistic model, $`\xi `$ would be generated by specifying probabilities for each classical configuration, i.e., for every assignment of one of the $`v`$ values to each of the $`nm`$ observables. Here the “local” character of the theory is expressed by the property that the assignment of a value to an observable at site $`k`$ does not depend on the observables chosen at other sites. Every configuration $`c`$ also represents a possible classical (ideally prepared) state, and hence a vector $`ϵ_c`$ of probabilities. The classical accessible region, which we will denote by $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, is thus the convex hull of $`v^{(nm)}`$ explicitly known extreme points. Even though the number of configurations is large, it is finite, hence $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is a polytope.

Like every compact convex set, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the intersection of all half spaces containing it. A half space is completely characterized by a linear inequality, so we must look for vectors $`\beta `$ such that $`\beta ,\xi 1`$ for all $`\xi \mathrm{\Omega }`$. Since this property can be checked on the extreme points $`ϵ_c`$ we must look at the convex set

$$=\{\beta |c:\beta ,ϵ_c1\},$$
(1)
also known as the polar of $`\{ϵ_c\}`$. For each $`\beta `$ the inequality $`\beta ,\xi 1`$ is thus a necessary condition for $`\xi \mathrm{\Omega }`$. Moreover, the Bipolar Theorem  says that the collection of all these inequalities is also sufficient.

Luckily, the inequalities are not all independent, since the inequality for a convex combination $`\beta =\lambda _i\beta _i`$, with $`\beta _i`$ already follows from the inequalities for the $`\beta _i`$. It therefore suffices to take only the extreme points of $``$. For a polytope this has a very intuitive geometrical interpretation: the half spaces determined by extreme points touch $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in a face of maximal dimension. Moreover, there are only finitely many such maximal faces, which is to say that $``$ is also a polytope.

The task of finding all Bell inequalities is therefore a special instance of a standard problem in convex geometry, known as the hull problem: given the extreme points $`\{ϵ_c\}`$ of a polytope $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, find its maximal faces or, equivalently, the extreme points of its polar.

The duality between $``$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is a generalization of the duality between regular platonic solids, under which dodecahedron and the icosahedron, as well as the octahedron and the cube are polars of each other. A generalized ($`d`$-dimensional) octahedron is the unit sphere in a sequence space $`\mathrm{}^1(\{1,\mathrm{},d\})`$. Its polar is the unit sphere in the dual Banach space $`\mathrm{}^{\mathrm{}}(\{1,\mathrm{},d\})`$, i.e., a $`d`$-dimensional hypercube. This is precisely the situation we will find for the classically accessible region considered in this paper, where $`d=2^n`$.

The first to consider the construction of a complete set of Bell type inequalities as a problem in convex geometry apparently was M. Froissart . Unfortunately, however, a general solution for all $`(n,m,v)`$ is highly unlikely to exist. To find some extreme points of (1) is not so difficult, but algorithms providing the complete set are likely to run into serious growth problems already for very small $`(n,m,v)`$. In fact, there is a theorem by Pitowsky  to the effect that, in a closely related problem, finding all inequalities would also solve some known hard problems in computational complexity (this is in fact strongly connected with the notorious $`NP=P`$ resp. $`NP=coNP`$ questions). Pitowsky and Svozil  have recently performed an extensive numerical search for $`n=3`$, and published their result, the coefficients of $`53856`$ inequalities on their website. Unfortunately, there is not much generalizable insight coming out of this kind of work, but it is nice to see what can be done in this hard numerical problem. For further problems and partial results in this genre we refer to the problem page  on our own website.

In what follows we will restrict to the case $`(n,m,v)=(n,2,2)`$ and “full” correlation functions in the sense described in the introduction.

## III All Bell correlation inequalities

### A Basic notation

Talking about Bell inequalities one usually has in mind inequalities of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt form . These inequalities refer to correlation experiments, in which each of two parties has the choice of two $`\pm 1`$ valued observables to be measured, i.e., $`(n,m,v)=(2,2,2)`$. Focusing only on full correlation functions for multi-particle generalizations of such systems ($`(n,m,v)=(n,2,2)`$, $`n`$ fixed arbitrarily) the raw experimental data are $`2^n`$ expectation values, each corresponding to a different experimental setup. Each setup is labeled by the choice of observables at each site. We parameterize these choices by binary variables $`s_k\{0,1\}`$ so that $`s_k`$ indicates the choice of the $`\pm 1`$-valued observable $`A_k(s_k)`$ at site $`k`$. Each full correlation function is thus the expectation of a product $`_kA_k(s_k)`$, and is labeled by a bit string $`s=(s_1,\mathrm{},s_n)`$.

We will consider these expectations as the components $`\xi (s)`$ of a vector $`\xi `$ in a $`2^n`$-dimensional space. Then any Bell inequality is of the form

$$\underset{s}{}\beta (s)\xi (s)1,$$
(2)
where we have normalized the coefficients $`\beta `$ so that the maximal classical value is $`1`$, in accordance with the definition of polars in Sec. II. The linear combination in Eq. (2) can also be computed under the expectation value, so that this inequality can be stated as an upper bound on the expectation of

$$B=\underset{s}{}\beta (s)\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}A_k(s_k).$$
(3)
We call such expressions Bell polynomials. They can be used directly in the quantum case, where all variables $`A_k(s_k)`$ are substituted by operators with $`1\mathrm{I}A_k(s_k)1\mathrm{I}`$, acting in the Hilbert space of the $`k`$-th site, and the product is taken as the tensor product. It is often useful to consider these polynomials rather than the set of coefficients, because often many coefficients are zero, and we can sometimes simplify a polynomial algebraically (e.g., by factorization), even though this may not be apparent from the coefficients.

Two convex sets in the real $`2^n`$-dimensional vector space are the subject of our investigation: firstly, the polytope $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of correlation vectors $`\xi `$ coming from local classical models, and secondly the set $`𝒬\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of such vectors arising from quantum models. $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ will be characterized in terms of Bell inequalities in this section, $`𝒬`$ will be considered in Sec. V.

### B Construction and completeness

In a local classical model every observable $`A_k(s_k)`$ is a random variable in its own right, i.e., it is a function of the “hidden variable” which does not depend on the choices $`s_{\mathrm{}}`$ of observables at other sites $`\mathrm{}k`$. A model must assign probabilities to any collection of values for these observables, i.e., to each classical configuration. Since the extremal choices of such probabilities just assign probability $`1`$ to one configuration and zero probability to all others, the extreme points of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ are simply labeled by the configurations.

One configuration $`c`$ is the choice of $`c_k(s_k)\{1,1\}`$ for all $`k`$ and $`s_k`$ . Clearly, there are $`2^{2n}`$ such configurations. The corresponding correlation vector $`\xi ϵ_c`$ has components

$$ϵ_c(s)=\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}c_k(s_k).$$
(4)
Since we only consider full correlation functions (and not restricted ones, see the introduction), different classical configurations may give the same extreme point $`ϵ_c`$. For example, we may choose two different sites, and change the values of all $`c_k(s_k)`$ at these sites simultaneously. Then in Eq. (4) the sign changes cancel for all $`s`$. This is also apparent from the factorization

$$ϵ_c(s)=\left(\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}c_k(0)\right)\underset{l=1}{\overset{n}{}}c_l(0)c_l(s_l),$$
(5)
in which the first factor is just an $`s`$-independent sign, and in the second factor it suffices to choose configurations with $`c_k(0)=1`$. Thus we can write $`c_k(s_k)=(1)^{s_kr_k}`$ with $`r_k\{0,1\}`$. Then

$$ϵ_c(s)=\pm (1)^{r,s},r,s=\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}r_ks_k,$$
(6)
where the extreme points are now labeled uniquely by the bit string $`r=(r_1,\mathrm{},r_n)`$ and the overall sign. This leaves us with exactly $`2^{n+1}`$ extreme points of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

Our task is now to find the extremal linear inequalities $`\beta `$, characterizing this set, i.e., the extreme points of $``$ from Eq. (1). The bipartite case was indeed completely analyzed by Fine , who showed that there are only two classes of inequalities: one is trivial in the sense, that it just requires correlations to be in $`[1,+1]`$, and the the second consists of the CHSH type inequalities, for which the prototype is $`\beta =(\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2})`$. A construction of some Bell type inequalities for arbitrary $`n`$ was first proposed by Mermin  and further developed by Ardehali , Klyshko  and Gisin .

We will now find all extremal solutions $`\beta `$ to the set of inequalities

$$1\underset{s}{}\beta (s)(1)^{r,s}1,$$
(7)
where $`r\{0,1\}^n`$ runs over all bit strings characterizing the configurations. Suppose that of these $`2^n`$ inequalities $`p<2^n`$ fixed ones are “tight” in the sense that the sum takes one of the extreme values $`\pm 1`$. This will be consistent with a plane (affine manifold) of vectors $`\beta `$ of dimension at least $`2^np`$. We can now construct convex decompositions of $`\beta `$ in an open neighborhood of $`\beta `$ in this plane, since each one of remaining sums is continuous in $`\beta `$, and there is a finite margin before another inequality becomes violated. This contradicts extremality, so we conclude that the inequality must be tight for all $`r`$. Thus we have $`2^n`$ signs $`f(r)\{+1,1\}`$ with

$$\underset{s}{}\beta (s)(1)^{r,s}=f(r),$$
(8)
Now we can read Equation (8) as a Fourier transform with respect to the group of $`n`$-tuples of $`\{0,1\}`$ with addition modulo $`2`$. Therefore, we easily obtain the entire set of extremal $`\beta `$ by applying the inverse transformation to the set of vectors $`f\{1,1\}^{2^n}`$:

$$\beta (s)=2^n\underset{r}{}f(r)(1)^{r,s}.$$
(9)
These are the coefficients of the complete set of $`2^{2^n}`$ extremal Bell inequalities specifying the range of expectations of full correlation functions for any local realistic model.

The inequalities constructed in this way have a natural numbering, defined by the following procedure: For any number between $`0`$ to $`2^{2^n}1`$, write the binary expansion with “digits” $`\pm 1`$ to get $`f`$, and perform the inverse Fourier transform (9). From $`\beta `$ compute the polynomial (3), which is often the best form of writing the inequality, because one can apply algebraic simplifications. For examples of this numbering, see the appendix. The converse procedure is similar. For example, the Mathematica package available from our website  finds that Mermin’s inequality for $`n=6`$ has the number $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.33em}692\hspace{0.33em}930\hspace{0.33em}046\hspace{0.33em}964\hspace{0.33em}590\hspace{0.33em}721}`$.

### C Structure of the classical region

From the previous section it is clear that the classical region $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is a polytope in $`d=2^n`$ dimensions with $`2d`$ extreme points and $`2^d`$ maximal faces. This suggests that $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ should be a hyper-octahedron, whose polar $``$ is a hyper-cube. Indeed from the parametrization of the inequalities by $`d`$ values $`f(r)=\pm 1`$, the latter statement is rather obvious. That $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is an octahedron is not so apparent in the coordinates labeled by $`s`$ as above. However, we can choose a basis transformation making this geometric identification of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ more obvious. The necessary transformation is, of course, just the Fourier transform. With the notation

$$\widehat{\xi }(r)=2^n\underset{s}{}(1)^{r,s}\xi (s)$$
(10)
we can summarize the findings of the previous section by saying that $`\xi \mathrm{\Omega }`$ if and only if

$$f\{1,1\}^{2^n}:\underset{r}{}f(r)\widehat{\xi }(r)1.$$
(11)
The expression in (11) reaches its maximum with respect to $`f`$, if $`f(r)`$ is just the sign of $`\widehat{\xi }(r)`$. Therefore, the whole set of $`2^{2^n}`$ linear inequalities (or the statement $`\xi \mathrm{\Omega }`$) is equivalent to the single non-linear inequality

$$\underset{r}{}|\widehat{\xi }(r)|1.$$
(12)
Obviously, this nonlinear inequality is nothing but the characterization of the hyper-octahedron in $`2^n`$ dimensions as the unit sphere of the Banach space $`\mathrm{}^1`$.

From this simple characterization of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ it might seem that our problem is essentially trivial. However, the vast symmetry group of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, which includes among other transformations the set of $`(2^n)!`$ permutations of the coordinates is misleading, because these are not really symmetries of the underlying problem of finding all correlations within a classical model. This is apparent from the observation that the Bell polynomials associated with the extreme points may look quite different algebraically. That is, the $`2^n`$ dimensions are not really equivalent, but carry some structure coming from the division of the system into $`n`$ sites. This is even more obvious when looking at the set of quantum correlations, which has a much lower symmetry.

Nevertheless, the underlying problem has a large symmetry group, which will be studied in the next section.

## IV Symmetries and substitutions

Browsing through the complete set of linear correlation inequalities one quickly gets the feeling that there are many rather similar ones, and also some inequalities which can be obtained in a rather trivial way (e.g., as a product) from lower order ones. In this section we will describe the grouping of the inequalities into “essentially different ones”, and also how they can be obtained by an efficient construction for composing higher order inequalities from lower order ones. Both ways of structuring the set of inequalities make sense for more general cases $`(n,m,v)`$ (see Section II), but for the moment we only apply them to our restricted class.

### A Symmetry Group

Some symmetries acting on Bell inequalities are obvious and, in fact, present in any problem of this type, involving any number of outcomes and observables. The basic symmetries leading to equivalent inequalities are:

1. Changing the labeling of the observables at each site.
2. Changing the names of the outcomes of each observable.
3. Permuting subsystems.

Since we have two observables per site, there are $`2^n`$ ways of swapping the labels of observables at each site. Swapping the $`\pm 1`$ outcomes of an observable $`A_k(s_k)`$ at site $`k`$ results in a sign in all correlation functions involving this observable. We have already utilized the fact that swapping both $`A_k(0)`$ and $`A_k(1)`$ only results in an overall sign, so it is enough to consider sign changes for $`A_k(1)`$ only. Clearly, there are $`2^n`$ such sign changes. Expressed in terms of the function $`f`$ these transformations amount to

$$f(r)(1)^{s_0,r}f(r+r_0),$$
(13)
where $`r,s_0,r_0`$ all lie in $`\{0,1\}^n`$, and $`r_0`$ and $`s_0`$ are the parameters describing the sign changes and observable swaps, respectively. Together with the global sign change and the $`n!`$ permutations we thus find the group $`G`$ of symmetry transformations in our case to have the order

$$|G|=n!\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}^{2n+1}.$$
(14)
The orbit of a given inequality is defined as the set of all the inequalities generated from it by symmetry transformations. The number of elements in an orbit is $`|G|`$, divided by the order of the group of symmetries leaving an element of the orbit invariant. The number of different orbits is the number of “essentially different” inequalities. Obviously, (14) is an upper bound on the number of elements in each orbit. Since the union of all orbits is the set of all inequalities, this leads to a lower bound on the number of essentially different inequalities.

Note that $`|G|`$ increases much more slowly than $`2^{2^n}`$, the total number of extremal inequalities. Therefore, for large $`n`$ the classification up to symmetry hardly reduces the number of cases. Explicitly, we find:

| $`n`$ | inequalities | $`|G|`$ | orbits |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2 | 16 | 64 | 2 |
| 3 | 256 | 768 | 5 |
| 4 | $`\mathrm{65\hspace{0.33em}536}`$ | $`\mathrm{12\hspace{0.33em}288}`$ | 39 |
| 5 | $`\mathrm{4\hspace{0.33em}294\hspace{0.33em}967\hspace{0.33em}296}`$ | $`\mathrm{245\hspace{0.33em}760}`$ | $`\mathrm{17\hspace{0.33em}476}`$ |

For $`n`$ up to $`4`$, the number of orbits was obtained explicitly. However, for $`n5`$ the lower bound on the number of orbits makes it clear that listing all essentially different inequalities is not going to be useful. More detailed results up to $`n=4`$ will be shown in the appendix.

### B Generating new inequalities by substitution

A simple way of generating inequalities for higher $`n`$ is to partition the $`n`$ sites into two subsets of sizes $`n_1`$ and $`n_2=nn_1`$ and to take arbitrary Bell polynomials for $`n_1`$ and $`n_2`$ sites, appropriately rename the variables, and to multiply the two expressions. For example, the polynomial

$$\frac{1}{2}(a_1b_1+a_1b_2+a_2b_1b_1b_2)c_1$$
(15)
is obtained by multiplying a CHSH polynomial for the first two sites with the trivial polynomial “$`c_1`$” on the third (note that for the sake of clarity we have substituted $`A_1(0),A_2(1)`$ with $`a_1,b_2`$ etc.). It is clear that this gives an extremal Bell inequality for three sites.

This procedure can be generalized considerably by noting that the product operation corresponds to the trivial two site Bell polynomial “$`a_1b_1`$”, but nothing restricts us to using a trivial expression here. So in general, consider a partition of the sites into $`K`$ subsets of sizes $`n_k`$, $`_{k=1}^Kn_k=n`$. Then pick an extremal Bell polynomial for $`K`$ sites, written out in variables $`A_1(0),A_1(1),\mathrm{},A_K(1)`$. Now substitute for each $`A_k(s_k)`$ an extremal Bell polynomial for $`n_k`$ sites. We claim that the resulting polynomial in $`n`$ variables is an extremal Bell polynomial.

Indeed, if we substitute for each of the variables either $`+1`$ or $`1`$, we will get $`A_k(s_k)=\pm 1`$ for each $`k,s_k`$, because we substituted extremal Bell polynomials. But then the same argument on the level of $`K`$ sites shows that the value will be $`\pm 1`$.

We will say that a Bell polynomial is elementary, if it cannot be obtained by substitution from lower order polynomials. Obviously, if an inequality is elementary, so is its entire orbit. Clearly, the CHSH inequality is elementary. Moreover, it is known that it is a good tool for generating higher order inequalities by substitution: one of the constructions  of the Mermin’s inequalities is based on this idea. But in view of the rapid increase of the double exponential one might think that there must be many more elementary inequalities. However, we have the following result:

Proposition. The CHSH-inequality is the only elementary Bell inequality in the class we consider, i.e., all these inequalities for $`n>2`$ can be constructed by successive substitutions into the CHSH-inequality.

It is an interesting open problem, whether this statement holds for other families of Bell inequalities, e.g., the one tabulated in .

We start the proof on the level of vectors $`f\{1,1\}^{2^n}`$ parameterizing an arbitrary extremal Bell inequality for $`n`$ sites. We decompose the system into a partition of $`K=2`$ subsets of size $`n1`$, $`1`$ and rewrite

$$f(\underset{\stackrel{~}{r}}{\underset{}{r_1,\mathrm{},r_{n1}}},r_n)=f(\stackrel{~}{r},0)\delta _{r_n,0}+f(\stackrel{~}{r},1)\delta _{r_n,1}.$$
(16)
The respective coefficients $`\beta (s)`$ of the $`n`$-site inequality are then obtained via Fourier transformation according to Eq. (9), and we get

$`\beta (s)`$ $`=2^n{\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}f(r)(1)^{r,s}`$ (17)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta _0(\stackrel{~}{s}){\displaystyle \underset{r_n}{}}(1)^{s_nr_n}\delta _{r_n,0}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta _1(\stackrel{~}{s}){\displaystyle \underset{r_n}{}}(1)^{s_nr_n}\delta _{r_n,1}`$ (18)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[\beta _0(\stackrel{~}{s})+(1)^{s_n}\beta _1(\stackrel{~}{s})\right],`$ (19)
where $`\beta _k(\stackrel{~}{s})`$ are coefficients for extremal Bell inequalities for $`n1`$ sites. If we now add the respective observables $`A_k(s_k)`$ and write out the corresponding Bell polynomial

$`B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}\beta (s){\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}}A_k(s_k)`$ (20)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}B_0\left[A_n(0)+A_n(1)\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}B_1\left[A_n(0)A_n(1)\right],`$ (21)
we immediately see, that this is just a CHSH polynomial, where the observables of one site have been substituted by Bell polynomials $`B_0`$ and $`B_1`$ for $`n1`$ sites.

## V Quantum violations

Provided with a huge number of Bell type inequalities we now go beyond the classical accessible region. The first question to arise is of course whether or not and to what extent quantum systems can violate these inequalities. To answer this question we will first provide an effective variational method for computing the maximal quantum violations and show, that they are bounded by those obtained for Mermin’s inequalities. In the following two subsections we will then briefly discuss the structure of the underlying quantum domain, and prove that the generalized GHZ state maximally violates any of the correlation inequalities.

### A Obtaining the maximal violations

In order to compute the maximal quantum violation of any correlation inequality we have to vary over one density operator $`\rho `$ on a tensor product of $`n`$ factors, and two operators in each factor. Assuming all tensor factors to have dimension $`d`$, this means $`d^{2n}`$ parameters for the density operator and $`2nd^2`$ for the observables. Hence the numerical solution of this variational problem is not feasible, except for the most trivial cases (and even impossible, because $`d`$ is, in principle, a free parameter). Fortunately, however, it turns out that computing the overall maximum is much easier than computing the maximal violation for a fixed state: we will reduce the computation to a variational formula in just $`n`$ variables.

First we have to recall some basic notions. In quantum mechanics expectations of $`\pm 1`$-valued observables are described by Hermitian operators $`A_k(s_k)`$ with spectrum in $`[1,+1]`$. Since we are only interested in maximal correlations, we may as well take the observables extremal in the convex set of Hermitian operators with $`1\mathrm{I}A1\mathrm{I}`$, i.e., we may assume the observables to be unitary and thus $`A^2=1\mathrm{I}`$.

The general form of a Bell inequality for an $`n`$-partite quantum system, which is characterized by a density operator $`\rho `$, is then

$$\mathrm{tr}(\rho B):=\mathrm{tr}\left[\rho \underset{s}{}\beta (s)\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}A_k(s_k)\right]1,$$
(22)
where we will refer to $`B`$ as the Bell operator, which is just the quantum counterpart of the Bell polynomial defined in Eq.(3). Of course, every expectation value (22) larger than $`1`$ is called a violation of Bell’s inequality.

In order to derive the maximal quantum violation, which is nothing but the operator norm of the Bell operator, we first define another operator $`C`$ by

$$C:=B\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}A_k(0)=\underset{s}{}\beta (s)\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}C_k^{s_k},$$
(23)
where we have set $`C_k=A_k(1)A_k(0)`$, and $`C_k^0=1\mathrm{I}`$. Since the $`C_k`$ are commuting unitary operators, all summands of $`C`$ can be diagonalized simultaneously, and the eigenvectors of $`C`$ are tensor products of eigenvectors of the $`C_k`$. Every eigenvalue $`\gamma `$ of $`C`$ is therefore of the form

$$\gamma =\underset{s}{}\beta (s)\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}\gamma _k^{s_k},$$
(24)
where $`\gamma _k`$ is an eigenvalue of $`C_k`$. It is clear from the above remarks that $`C`$ commutes with its adjoint, so $`C`$ is just the modulus of the largest eigenvalue. Now we utilize the fact that $`B^{}B=C^{}C`$, i.e., $`B=C`$ and obtain

$$B=\underset{\{\gamma _k\}}{sup}\left|\underset{s}{}\beta (s)\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}\gamma _k^{s_k}\right|,$$
(25)
where each $`\gamma _k`$ runs over the eigenvalues of $`C_k=A_k(1)A_k(0)`$. This formula allows us to compute the largest expectation $`\mathrm{tr}(\rho B)`$ for fixed real coefficients $`\beta `$ (coming from a Bell inequality or not) and a fixed choice of observables $`A_k(s_k)`$, but with $`\rho `$ chosen without further constraints to maximize the expectation.

What we are now interested in is the maximum also with respect to the $`A_k(s_k)`$. Since formula (25) depends only on the eigenvalues $`\gamma _k`$ this will be given by the same expression, but with $`\gamma _k`$ running not just over the eigenvalues of a particular operator $`C_k`$ but over all $`\gamma _k`$ which can be eigenvalues of products of unitary and hermitian operators. Since such a product is again unitary, we have $`|\gamma _k|=1`$. Moreover, as is easily seen in $`2\times 2`$ examples, this is the only constraint in any Hilbert space dimension (see also Sec. V D). Hence for any choice of real coefficients $`\beta (s)`$ and observables $`1\mathrm{I}A_k(s_k)1\mathrm{I}`$, we have, as the best possible bound:

$$\mathrm{tr}\left[\rho \underset{s}{}\beta (s)\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}A_k(s_k)\right]\underset{\{\gamma _k\}}{sup}\left|\underset{s}{}\beta (s)\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}\gamma _k^{s_k}\right|,$$
(26)
where the supremum runs over all $`\{\gamma _1,\mathrm{},\gamma _n\}`$ with $`|\gamma _k|=1`$. Moreover, the bound does not change with Hilbert space dimension, as long as all factors are non-trivial.

A more detailed discussion of quantum violations utilizing Eq. (25) for the special cases $`n=3,4`$ can be found in the appendix.

### B Mermin’s inequalities and the overall maximum

Asking for the overall maximal quantum violation we may additionally vary over the set of inequalities. In utilizing the result obtained in the previous section, we are able to express the norm of a Bell operator in terms of lower order Bell operators. Moreover it suffices to consider qubit systems and we may therefore set $`A_k(s_k)=\stackrel{}{a}_k(s_k)\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$, where $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$ is the vector of Pauli matrices and $`\stackrel{}{a}_k(s_k)`$ is a normalized vector in $`\text{ }\text{R}^3`$.

Squaring Eq.(20) this leads to

$`B^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{B_0^2}{2}}\left[1+\stackrel{}{a}_n(0)\stackrel{}{a}_n(1)\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{B_1^2}{2}}\left[1\stackrel{}{a}_n(0)\stackrel{}{a}_n(1)\right]`$ (27)
$`+`$ $`[B_0,B_1]{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}[\stackrel{}{a}_n(0)\times \stackrel{}{a}_n(1)]\stackrel{}{\sigma }.`$ (28)
Without loss of generality we now assume that $`B_0B_1`$ and estimate by induction

$$B^2=B^22B_1^22^{n1}.$$
(29)
This bound is indeed saturated by the set of inequalities going back to Mermin , which thus provide the overall maximal quantum violation. In fact, we will show, that the converse is also true, so that we have the following

Proposition. The orbit corresponding to Mermin’s inequality is the only one for which the maximal violation $`2^{\frac{n1}{2}}`$ is attained.

Before we continue proving the claimed uniqueness, we emphasize, however, that this does in general not imply, that for a fixed quantum state Mermin’s inequality is more strongly violated than any other.

We begin our proof with noting that the maximal norm of the Bell operator in Eq.(27) requires orthogonality of the observables, such that the respective phases in Eq.(25) have to be $`\pm i`$. Without loss of generality we can thereby restrict to the case $`+i`$ since the remaining sings just correspond to a transformation between two inequalities of the same orbit according to (13). Hence, Eq.(25) leads to

$`B_{max}`$ $`=`$ $`2^n\left|{\displaystyle \underset{r,s}{}}f_{max}(r){\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}}(1)^{s_kr_k}i^{s_k}\right|`$ (30)
$`=`$ $`2^n\left|{\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}f_{max}(r){\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\left[1+i(1)^{r_k}\right]\right|`$ (31)
$`=`$ $`2^{\frac{n}{2}}\left|{\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}f_{max}(r){\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\left[e^{i\frac{\pi }{4}(12r_k)}\right]\right|`$ (32)
$`=`$ $`2^{\frac{n}{2}}\left|{\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}f_{max}(r)(i)^{_kr_k}\right|.`$ (33)
If we now want $`B_{max}`$ to saturate the bound in (29), then following Eq.(30) we are left with four possible choice for $`f_{max}`$, like $`f_{max}(r)=1`$ for $`(i)^{_kr_k}=1,i`$ and $`f_{max}(r)=1`$ otherwise. Since these four inequalities again belong to the same orbit, the correlation inequality leading to the overall maximal quantum violation is indeed uniquely determined (up to equivalence transformations within one orbit).

### C Structure of the quantum domain

In the same manner as we did for the classical case we may ask for the structure of the region in the space of correlations, which is accessible within the framework of quantum mechanics. One of the first to investigate this question in more detail apparently was Tsirelson , while studying quantum generalizations of Bell’s inequalities.

Let us begin with defining the quantum counterpart of the classical accessible region $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, introduced in Sec. II:

$$𝒬:=\left\{\xi \right|\xi _s=\mathrm{tr}\left[\rho \underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}A_k(s_k)\right]\}\text{ }\text{R}^{2^n},$$
(34)
where $`\{A_k\}`$ are suitable observables and $`\rho `$ is a quantum state in arbitrary dimension. The structure of $`𝒬`$ is much more complicated than that of $`\mathrm{\Omega }𝒬`$. In particular, it is not a polytope. Nevertheless, we can explicitly parameterize its extreme points. For the sake of completeness we will first prove convexity of $`𝒬`$, although this follows closely the work of Tsirelson .

Consider a convex combination of vectors in $`𝒬`$

$$\underset{\alpha }{}\lambda ^{(\alpha )}\xi ^{(\alpha )},\xi ^{(\alpha )}𝒬$$
(35)
and an associated Hilbert space

$$=\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}_k=\underset{k}{}\underset{\alpha }{}_k^{(\alpha )}\underset{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _n}{}\underset{k}{}_k^{(\alpha _k)}.$$
(36)
Then with $`\rho =_\alpha \lambda ^{(\alpha )}\rho ^{(\alpha )}`$, which is a density operator acting on the “diagonal subspace”

$$\underset{\alpha }{}\underset{k}{}_k^{(\alpha )},$$
(37)
and $`A_k(s_k)=_\alpha A_k^{(\alpha )}(s_k)`$ we are given a state and observables such, that the convex combination in (35) is indeed a proper element of $`𝒬`$. Hence, $`𝒬`$ is convex.

Now let us return to the result obtained in the previous subsection. Following Eq. (25) we can write the maximal quantum violation of an arbitrary inequality $`\beta `$ as

$`\underset{\gamma _0\mathrm{}\gamma _n}{sup}{\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}\beta (s)\mathrm{}e\left(\gamma _0{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\gamma _k^{s_k}\right)`$ (38)
$`=`$ $`\underset{\phi _0\mathrm{}\phi _n}{sup}{\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}\beta (s)\xi _s(\phi _0,\mathrm{},\phi _n),`$ (39)
where we have set $`\xi _s(\phi _0,\mathrm{},\phi _n)=\mathrm{cos}(\phi _0+_k\phi _ks_k)`$. Now by the Bipolar Theorem  the convex set $`𝒬`$ is just given by the convex hull of these vectors:

$$𝒬=\text{co}\left\{\xi (\phi _0,\mathrm{},\phi _n)\right\}.$$
(40)
### D Generalized GHZ states

It is a well known fact, that the generalized GHZ state defined by

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{GHZ}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|00\mathrm{}0+|11\mathrm{}1\right)$$
(41)
maximally violates Mermin’s inequalities . Astonishingly this is also true for any other of the $`2^{2^n}`$ correlation inequalities:

Proposition. Any extreme point of the convex set of quantum correlation functions as defined in Eq.(34) is already obtained for the generalized GHZ state. In particular, this implies that GHZ states maximally violate any of the presented correlation inequalities.

We have to show, that for any set of angles $`\{\phi _0,\mathrm{},\phi _n\}`$ there are suitable observables such, that

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{GHZ}|\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}A_k(s_k)|\mathrm{\Psi }_{GHZ}=\mathrm{cos}(\phi _0+\underset{k}{}\phi _ks_k).$$
(42)
Therefore we choose observables $`A_k(s_k)=\stackrel{}{a}_k(s_k)\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$ with

$`\stackrel{}{a}_k(0)`$ $`=`$ $`(\mathrm{cos}\alpha ,\mathrm{sin}\alpha ,0)`$ (43)
$`\stackrel{}{a}_k(1)`$ $`=`$ $`(\mathrm{cos}(\phi _k+\alpha ),\mathrm{sin}(\phi _k+\alpha ),0).`$ (44)
These observables simply swap the basis vectors providing them with an additional phase factor, i.e.,

$$\stackrel{}{a}_k(s_k)\stackrel{}{\sigma }|j=\mathrm{exp}\left[i(1)^j(\alpha +\phi _ks_k)\right]|j1,$$
(45)
where $`j=0,1`$ and $``$ means addition modulo 2. Hence, for the left hand side of Eq.(42) two terms occur, which are just complex conjugates of each other, and we get

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{GHZ}|\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}A_k(s_k)|\mathrm{\Psi }_{GHZ}=\mathrm{}e\left\{e^{i\alpha n}e^{i_k\phi _ks_k}\right\},$$
(46)
so that it just remains to set $`\alpha =\phi _0/n`$.

## VI States with positive partial transposes

The violation of one of the inequalities, which can be derived from Eq.(9), is a rather physical entanglement criterion, since we can at least in principal decide it experimentally by measuring the respective correlations. However, the difficulty in doing so is the choice of the observables, and optimizing them for a fixed state leads in general to a very high dimensional variational problem. An entanglement criterion, which is in contrast easy to compute, is the partial transpose proposed by Peres in .

Before we settle the relationship between these two entanglement criteria, we will briefly recall some basic notions.

The partial transpose of an operator on a twofold tensor product of Hilbert spaces $`_1_2`$ is defined by

$$\left(\underset{j}{}C_jD_j\right)^{T_1}=\underset{j}{}C_j^TD_j,$$
(47)
where $`C_j^T`$ on the right hand side is the ordinary transposition of matrices with respect to a fixed basis. The generalization of this definition to an $`n`$-fold tensor product is straight forward, and we will denote the transposition of all sites belonging to a set $`\tau \{1,\mathrm{},n\}`$ by the superscript $`T_\tau `$.

Recall further, that a state is called separable or classically correlated, if it can be written as a convex combination of tensor product states – otherwise it is called entangled. A necessary condition for separability, which also turned out to be sufficient in the case of two qubits , but not in general (cf.), is the positivity of all partial transposes with respect to all subsystems. Moreover, there is a conjecture by Peres , that this might even imply the existence of a local realistic model. In  we showed, that the set of inequalities going back to Mermin  is indeed fulfilled for states satisfying this “ppt”-condition. In the following we will show that this implication is not due to a special property of these inequalities, but holds for any Bell type inequality in (22), as long as we consider expectations of full $`n`$-site correlations. This leads to the main result of this section:

Proposition  Consider an $`n`$-partite quantum system, where each of the parties has the choice of two dichotomic observables to be measured. Assume further, that the partial transposes with respect to all subsystems of the corresponding density operator are again positive semi-definite operators. Then all the $`2^n`$ correlations can be described in the context of a local realistic model.

In particular, this implies, that if a state is biseparable with respect to all partitions, all the inequalities are satisfied even if there exists no convex decomposition into $`n`$-fold product states.

In order to prove this proposition and to derive an upper bound for the expectation of the Bell operator, we first apply the variance inequality to $`\rho ^{T_\tau }`$ and $`B^{T_\tau }`$:

$`(\mathrm{tr}\rho B)^2`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\mathrm{tr}\rho ^{T_\tau }B^{T_\tau }\right)^2\mathrm{tr}\left[\rho ^{T_\tau }(B^{T_\tau })^2\right]`$ (48)
$``$ $`\mathrm{tr}\left\{\rho \left[(B^{T_\tau })^2\right]^{T_\tau }\right\}.`$ (49)
Since we suppose that $`\rho ^{T_\tau }0\tau `$ this holds for any partial transposition, and we may take the average with respect to all subsets $`\tau `$, and have therefore to estimate the expectation of the operator

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2^n}}{\displaystyle \underset{\tau }{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s,s^{}}{}}\beta (s)\beta (s^{}){\displaystyle \underset{k\tau }{}}A_k(s_k)A_k(s_k^{}){\displaystyle \underset{k\tau }{}}A_k(s_k^{})A_k(s_k)`$ (50)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{s,s^{}}{}}\beta (s)\beta (s^{}){\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\{A_k(s_k),A_k(s_k^{})\}_+,`$ (51)
where $`\{,\}_+`$ denotes the anti-commutator. Note that in the first line of Eq.(50) we have rearranged the tensor product and made use of

$$\left[A_k(s_k^{})^TA_k(s_k)^T\right]^T=A_k(s_k)A_k(s_k^{}).$$
(52)
Since $`A^2=1\mathrm{I}`$ and $`s_k,s_k^{}\{0,1\}`$ only two different operators can arise in every tensor factor in (50): either $`\frac{1}{2}\{A_k(0),A_k(1)\}_+`$ or the identity operator. These two obviously commute, and we can therefore simultaneously diagonalize all the summands. What remains to do, is to substantiate our intuition that “if everything commutes, then we are in the classical regime”. For this purpose note, that eigenvalues of the operator (50) are of the form

$$\underset{s,s^{}}{}\beta (s)\beta (s^{})\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}\left\{\begin{array}{ccccc}\chi _k& \hfill ,s_k& & s_k^{}& \\ 1& \hfill ,s_k& =& s_k^{}& \end{array}\right\},$$
(53)
for suitable $`1\chi _k1`$. But since we can always find classical observables $`𝒞`$ with correlations

$$𝒞_k(0)𝒞_k(1)=\chi _k,$$
(54)
we are able to construct a system, which is classical in the sense that it may be described in the context of classical probability theory, such, that (53) is the expectation of the square of the respective Bell polynomial. However, due to the defining properties of the Bell inequalities, this is indeed bounded by unity, which proves our claim, that all the considered Bell inequalities are satisfied for states having positive partial transposes with respect to all their subsystems.

## VII Conclusion

We provided two approaches for constructing the entire set of multipartite correlation Bell inequalities for two dichotomic observables per site: the Fourier transformation of a $`2^n`$-digit binary number and nesting CHSH inequalities. This set of inequalities led us to a single non-linear inequality, which detects the existence of a local classical model with respect to the considered correlations. We were able to simplify the variational problem of obtaining the maximal quantum violation of the linear correlation inequalities, in particular showing, that these are attained for generalized GHZ states, and proved, that “ppt states” satisfy all these $`2^{2^n}`$ inequalities.

One crucial assumptions was, that each site has the only choice of two dichotomic observables to be measured. Permitting more observables per site, more outcomes per observable or even the choice of “ not measuring”, i.e., including restricted correlation functions, would lead to non-commuting terms, and most of the arguments would fail. So this is obviously a starting point for further investigations. In particular, one may think of applying the mechanism of substitution (Sec.IV) in order to derive new classes of Bell inequalities.

Another open question concerns the hierarchy of the inequalities with respect to their quantum violations. That is, if a given inequality is violated for a fixed quantum state, is there a set of inequivalent inequalities, which have to be violated as well?

Finally, we want to mention, that there is recent work by Scarani and Gisin  pointing out, that there might be a close relation between the quantum violation of multipartite Bell inequalities and the security of $`n`$-partner quantum communication.

## Acknowledgement

Funding by the European Union project EQUIP (contract IST-1999-11053) and financial support from the DFG (Bonn) is gratefully acknowledged.

##

Recently more and more attention has turned to tri- and four-partite states, especially to symmetric states as laboratories for multipartite entanglement (cf. ). Therefore we will provide the complete set of Bell inequalities for these cases in a more explicit form and additionally give the maximal quantum violations, which we have numerically  obtained utilizing the method presented in Sec.V.

### 1 Inequalities for three sites

For $`n=3`$ Eq.(9) leads to the five essentially different Bell polynomials (for the sake of legibility we again substitute $`A_1(0),A_2(1)`$ with $`a_1,b_2`$ etc.):

$`a_1b_1c_1`$ (55)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \underset{k,l,m}{}}a_kb_lc_ma_1b_1c_1`$ (56)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[a_1(b_1+b_2)+a_2(b_1b_2)\right]c_1`$ (57)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[a_1b_1(c_1+c_2)a_2b_2(c_1c_2)\right]`$ (58)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(a_1b_1c_2+a_1b_2c_1+a_2b_1c_1a_2b_2c_2\right)`$ (59)
(55) and (57) are just trivial extensions of lower order inequalities, and (59) belongs to the set developed by Mermin . The maximal quantum violations, the number of the first inequality of each of the 5 orbits, and the sizes of the respective orbits are stated in the following table:

| ineq. | $`|`$orbit$`|`$ | qm.viol. |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 0 | 16 | 1 | (55) |
| 1 | 128 | $`5/3`$ | (56) |
| 3 | 48 | $`\sqrt{2}`$ | (57) |
| 6 | 48 | $`\sqrt{2}`$ | (58) |
| 23 | 16 | 2 | (59) |

### 2 Inequalities for four sites

For $`n=4`$ we just give the number of the first inequality of each of the 39 orbits, its size, and the respective maximal quantum violations. The index $`p`$ labels orbits including an element which is invariant under permutations of the subsystems, and $`f`$ indicates factorizing Bell polynomials (like (55) and (57) for tripartite systems):

| ineq. | $`|`$orbit$`|`$ | qm.viol. |  | 283 | 6144 | 2.078 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`0_{p,f}`$ | 32 | 1 |  | 286 | 1536 | 2.078 |
| $`1_p`$ | 512 | 1.843 |  | 287 | 1536 | 2.326 |
| $`3_f`$ | 1024 | 5/3 |  | 300 | 3072 | 2 |
| 6 | 1536 | 5/3 |  | 301 | 6144 | 5/3 |
| 7 | 3072 | 1.932 |  | 303 | 3072 | 1.819 |
| $`15_f`$ | 192 | $`\sqrt{2}`$ |  | 317 | 3072 | 2 |
| 22 | 2048 | 1.932 |  | 318 | 1536 | 2 |
| 23 | 1024 | $`\sqrt{5}`$ |  | 319 | 2048 | 2.139 |
| 24 | 1024 | 2 |  | 360 | 1024 | 2.326 |
| 25 | 6144 | $`\sqrt{3}`$ |  | 363 | 1536 | $`\sqrt{3}`$ |
| 27 | 3072 | $`\sqrt{3}`$ |  | 367 | 1536 | $`\sqrt{3}`$ |
| 30 | 3072 | $`\sqrt{3}`$ |  | $`383_p`$ | 256 | 2 |
| $`60_f`$ | 384 | $`\sqrt{2}`$ |  | $`831_f`$ | 128 | 2 |
| 105 | 128 | $`\sqrt{2}`$ |  | $`854_f`$ | 96 | 2 |
| $`278_p`$ | 256 | $`\sqrt{5}`$ |  | 857 | 384 | $`\sqrt{2}`$ |
| $`279_p`$ | 512 | 2.556 |  | 874 | 384 | 2 |
| 280 | 3072 | 2.139 |  | 1632 | 96 | $`\sqrt{2}`$ |
| 281 | 1536 | 1.819 |  | 1647 | 192 | 2 |
| 282 | 3072 | 1.819 |  | $`6014_p`$ | 32 | $`2\sqrt{2}`$ |

The number of the inequality representing the orbit of Mermin’s inequality is 6014.