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# Violations of Bell inequalities as lower bounds on the communication cost of non-local correlations

## I Introduction

Characterizing the features of quantum mechanics which differentiate it from classical theories is an important issue for quantum information theory, as well as from a fundamental perspective. One such peculiarity is the non-local character of quantum mechanics, i.e. the fact that quantum correlations are incompatible with local realistic theories. Apart from being one of the most intriguing aspects of nature, non-locality is deeply related to several quantum information processing tasks Scarani and Gisin (2002); Acín et al. (2002a), and is at the core of quantum communication complexity Brassard ; Brukner et al. .

It was Bell Bell (1964) who first showed that correlations obtained by measuring two separated subsystems cannot be explained by a classical realistic theory if no communication between the subsystems is allowed. The question which then follows is: how much communication is required to reproduce these correlations ? This is a natural way to quantify the non-local character of quantum correlations in terms of classical resources. We will show that the inequalities introduced by Bell forty years ago not only tell us that some communication is necessary to produce the correlations but also how much.

The situation we consider is the one encountered in bipartite Bell scenarios. Two spatially separated parties, Alice and Bob, receive local inputs $`x`$ and $`y`$ and subsequently produce outputs $`a`$ and $`b`$. We denote by $`M_A`$ the number of possible inputs on Alice’s side and by $`M_B`$ the number of inputs on Bob’s side and restrict ourselves to the case where a finite number of distinct outcomes is associated to each input. The scenario is completely characterized by the probabilities $`p_{ab|xy}`$ that Alice outputs $`a`$ when given $`x`$ and Bob outputs $`b`$ when given $`y`$. We therefore associate to each Bell scenario a correlation vector $`𝐩`$ with entries $`p_{ab|xy}`$. Note that these entries satisfy the normalisation constraints

$$\underset{a,b}{}p_{ab|xy}=1\text{for}\begin{array}{c}x=0,\mathrm{}M_A1\\ y=0,\mathrm{}M_B1\end{array}.$$
(1)
In the quantum version of the Bell scenario, Alice and Bob share an entangled quantum state on which they perform local measurements. The inputs $`x`$ and $`y`$ then correspond to the possible settings of their measuring apparatus and the outcomes $`a`$ and $`b`$ correspond to the results of these measurements.

In the classical version of the Bell scenario, Alice and Bob may use only classical resources, i.e shared randomness (local hidden variables) and classical communication, to determine their outcomes $`a`$ and $`b`$. If the two parties have unrestricted access to shared randomness, the classical cost of producing the correlations $`𝐩`$ is the minimum amount of communication they must exchange in a classical protocol to achieve this goal. Different measures of this amount of communication are possible:

i) *$`C_w(𝐩)`$: Worst case communication*: the maximal amount of communication exchanged between Alice and Bob in any particular execution of the protocol. See Brassard et al. (1999); Csirik (2002); Bacon and Toner ; Toner and Bacon .

ii) *$`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$: Average communication*: the average communication exchanged between Alice and Bob, where the average is taken over the inputs and the shared randomness. See Maudlin (1992); Steiner (2000); Méthot .

iii) *$`C_{\mathrm{}}(𝐩)`$: Asymptotic communication*: the limit $`lim_n\mathrm{}\overline{C}(𝐩^n)/n`$, where $`𝐩^n`$ is the probability distribution obtained when $`n`$ runs of the Bell scenario are carried out in parallel, that is when the parties receive $`n`$ inputs and produce $`n`$ outputs in one go. See Cerf et al. (2000).

In each of these definitions the costs are defined with respect to the optimal protocol that gives the lowest value for each quantity.

The asymptotic measure $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ may be the most appropriate when one is concerned with practical applications that make use of the correlations but is less preoccupied whether the measurements are performed individually or collectively. On the other hand, the first two measures of communication relate to protocols where the outcomes are determined after each single pair of inputs is chosen. This is in particular the situation encountered in Bell tests. These two measures thus more properly count the communication necessary to simulate classically non-locality and it could be expected that they are closely connected to Bell inequalities. Relations between the worst case situation and Bell inequalities were examined in Bacon and Toner  where the authors introduced new Bell inequalities that are satisfied by correlations that necessitate at most 1 bit of communication to be simulated.

In the present paper, we concentrate on the average communication $`\overline{C}`$. We first point out that the amount by which the probabilities $`𝐩`$ violate a Bell inequality imposes a lower bound on $`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$. This bound is simply a bound on the amount of communication needed to classically simulate a violation of the inequality. It is a priori unclear that one particular manifestation of the non-local content of correlations, the violation of a specific Bell inequality, suffices to characterize exactly the communication $`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$ necessary to reproduce the entire set of correlations (all the less since in general correlations violate more than one inequality). Yet, to each probability distribution $`𝐩`$ is associated an optimal inequality such that the bound the violation imposes on $`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$ is saturated, i.e. it gives the minimal average communication needed to reproduce these correlations. We then investigate in detail the case of the CHSH inequality Clauser et al. (1969). We show that for two settings and two outcomes Bell scenarios, the CHSH inequality is optimal for all quantum correlations. This implies in particular that $`\sqrt{2}10.4142`$ bits are necessary and sufficient on average to reproduce classically the correlations that lead to the maximal violation of the inequality. We then apply our approach to the CGLMP inequality Collins et al. (2002). We find that for two measurements scenarios more communication is needed to reproduce the effect of measuring certain non-maximally entangled states of two qutrits than is necessary for maximally entangled ones. Our results, combined with those of Acín et al. (2002b), suggest that this is also the case for qu$`d`$its with $`d3`$. Finally we ask whether for quantum correlations the optimal inequalities from the communication point of view are always facet inequalities. We give an example where this is not the case.

This paper is organized as follows. We first describe in section II how the average communication $`\overline{C}`$ relates to the degree of violation of Bell inequalities. We then apply these ideas to the CHSH inequality in section III and to the CGLMP inequality in section IV. In section V, we discuss the relations between optimal and facet inequalities.

## II General formalism

### II.1 Deterministic protocols

To state our results it is necessary to consider particular classical protocols, the deterministic ones which don’t use any kind of randomness. These protocols therefore always produce the same pair of outcomes for given inputs $`x`$ and $`y`$. The entries of the associated correlation vector $`𝐝`$ are thus of the form $`d_{ab|xy}=\delta _{\alpha (x,y)}^a\delta _{\beta (x,y)}^b`$ where $`\alpha (x,y)`$ and $`\beta (x,y)`$ specify Alice’s and Bob’s outcomes for measurements $`x`$ and $`y`$. Since there are a finite number of functions $`\alpha (x,y)`$ and $`\beta (x,y)`$, there are a finite number of different deterministic strategies $`𝐝^\lambda `$ which we index by $`\lambda `$. Their interest is that any classical protocol can be viewed as a probability distribution $`\{q_\lambda \}`$ of deterministic protocols $`𝐝^\lambda `$. That is any correlation vector $`𝐩`$ can be written as $`𝐩=_\lambda q_\lambda 𝐝^\lambda `$ where $`q_\lambda 0`$ and $`_\lambda q_\lambda =1`$.

Deterministic protocols for which $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ depend only on the measurements performed locally by each party, i.e. $`\alpha =\alpha (x)`$, $`\beta =\beta (y)`$, are local protocols. No communication at all is required to implement them. On the other hand, if $`\alpha (x,y)`$ or $`\beta (x,y)`$ depends on the input of the other party, some (deterministic) communication $`c(x,y)`$ between the parties is necessary to carry out the protocol.

It will be convenient to group in subsets $`𝒟_i`$ deterministic strategies that need the same comunication $`c_i`$ to be implemented. Since in the present paper we are interested in the average communication $`\overline{C}`$, we will group the deterministic strategies with respect to the minimal average communication needed to implement them, expressed in bits. Indexing strategies in $`𝒟_i`$ by $`\lambda _i`$, we thus have $`\overline{C}(𝐝^{\lambda _i})=c_i`$ $`\lambda _i`$. We also arrange the subsets $`𝒟_i`$ ($`i=0,\mathrm{}N`$) in increasing order with respect to their communication cost: $`c_i<c_{i+1}`$. Local deterministic strategies thus belong to $`𝒟_0`$ for which $`c_0`$=0, while the maximum communication cost $`c_N`$ is associated with strategies in $`𝒟_N`$. This occurs when both parties need to send the value of their input to the other, so $`c_N=\mathrm{log}_2M_A+\mathrm{log}_2M_B`$. We will further illustrate this grouping of deterministic strategies in section IV.

With the above notation, a decomposition of $`𝐩`$ in term of deterministic strategies can be written

$$𝐩=\underset{i}{}\underset{\lambda _i}{}q_{\lambda _i}𝐝^{\lambda _i}.$$
(2)
It then directly follows that the average communication $`\overline{C}(𝐩,\{q_\lambda \})`$ associated to the protocol (2) is given by

$`\overline{C}(𝐩,\{q_\lambda \})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda _i}{}}q_{\lambda _i}\overline{C}(𝐝^{\lambda _i})`$ (3)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda _i}{}}q_{\lambda _i}c_i={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}q_ic_i`$
where $`q_i=_{\lambda _i}q_{\lambda _i}`$ is the probability to use a strategy from $`𝒟_i`$. The minimum amount of communication $`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$ necessary to reproduce the correlations $`𝐩`$ is the minimum of $`\overline{C}(𝐩,\{q_\lambda \})`$ over all possible decompositions of the form (2). If there exists a decomposition such that $`q_0=1`$, i.e., if the correlations can be written as a convex combination of local deterministic strategies, then $`\overline{C}(𝐩)=0`$ and the correlations are local. If for every decomposition $`q_0<1`$, the correlations are non-local and they violate a Bell inequality.

### II.2 Bell inequalities

A Bell inequality can be viewed as a vector $`𝐛`$ which associates to each probability distribution $`𝐩`$ a number $`B(𝐩)=𝐛𝐩`$. One particular number is the local bound $`B_0=\mathrm{max}_{\lambda _0}\{𝐛𝐝^{\lambda _0}\}`$. By convexity, every local probability distribution $`𝒍=_{\lambda _0}q_{\lambda _0}𝐝^{\lambda _0}`$ satisfies the inequality $`B(𝒍)B_0`$. Correlations $`𝐩`$ that violate it, $`B(𝐩)>B_0`$, are therefore non-local. To extract more information from $`B(𝐩)`$ than a simple detection of non-locality it is necessary to consider not only the upper bound $`B_0`$ the inequality takes on the local subset $`𝒟_0`$, but also on all the other subsets $`𝒟_i`$:

$$B_i=\underset{\lambda _i}{\mathrm{max}}\{𝐛𝐝^{\lambda _i}\}.$$
(4)
Given this extra knowledge, a constraint on the decomposition (2) can be deduced from the amount by which $`𝐩`$ violates the Bell inequality. This turns into a bound on $`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$ which is the basis of the present paper.

### II.3 Main results

###### Proposition 1.

For every inequality $`𝐛`$ and probability distribution $`𝐩`$, the following bound holds:

$$\overline{C}(𝐩)\frac{B(𝐩)B_0}{B_j^{}B_0}c_j^{}$$
(5)
where $`j`$ is the index such that $`(B_j^{}B_0)/c_j^{}=\mathrm{max}_{j0}\{(B_jB_0)/c_j\}`$.

###### Proof.

From (2) and (4), we deduce $`B(𝐩)=𝐛𝐩=_i_{\lambda _i}q_{\lambda _i}𝐛𝐝^{\lambda _i}_iq_iB_i`$. Since $`_iq_i=1`$ we find

$$B(𝐩)B_0\underset{i0}{}q_i(B_iB_0)$$
(6)
or

$$q_j^{}\frac{B(𝐩)B_0}{B_j^{}B_0}\underset{i0,j^{}}{}q_i\frac{B_iB_0}{B_j^{}B_0}$$
(7)
We thus obtain

$`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}q_ic_i`$ (8)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{B(𝐩)B_0}{B_j^{}B_0}}c_j^{}+{\displaystyle \underset{i0,j^{}}{}}q_i\left(c_i{\displaystyle \frac{B_iB_0}{B_j^{}B_0}}c_j^{}\right)`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{B(𝐩)B_0}{B_j^{}B_0}}c_j^{}`$
where in the last line we used $`(B_j^{}B_0)/c_j^{}(B_iB_0)/c_i`$ which follows from the definition of $`j^{}`$. ∎

The bound (5) the inequality $`𝐛`$ imposes on the average communication $`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$ is proportional to the degree of violation $`B(𝐩)`$ times a normalisation factor $`\frac{c_j^{}}{B_j^{}B_0}`$ expressed in units of “communication per amount of violation”. This naturally suggests to rewrite Bell inequalities in natural units where $`\frac{c_j^{}}{B_j^{}B_0}=1`$ so that (5) takes a simpler form:

###### Proposition 2.

Every Bell inequality $`𝐛`$ can be rewritten in a normalised form $`𝐛^{}`$ such that $`B_i^{}c_i`$ $`i`$. For the normalised inequality the bound (5) becomes

$$\overline{C}(𝐩)B^{}(𝐩).$$
(9)
###### Proof.

Define the normalised version of the inequality $`𝐛`$ as

$$𝐛^{}=\frac{c_j^{}}{B_j^{}B_0}\left(𝐛\frac{B_0}{M_AM_B}\mathrm{𝟏}\right)$$
(10)
where $`j^{}`$ is taken as in Proposition 1. Note that $`\mathrm{𝟏}𝐩=M_AM_B`$ since the entries of all correlations vector $`𝐩`$ satisfy the normalisation constraints (1). The effect of the term $`\frac{B_0}{M_AM_B}\mathrm{𝟏}`$ in (10) is thus to shift the value the inequality takes on an arbitrary vector $`𝐩`$ from $`B(𝐩)`$ to $`B(𝐩)B_0`$. We therefore get $`B_i^{}=\mathrm{max}_{\lambda _i}\{𝐛^{}𝐝^{\lambda _i}\}=\frac{c_j^{}}{B_j^{}B_0}(B_iB_0)c_i`$ where the last inequality holds by definition of $`j^{}`$.

We then immediately deduce (9) since $`B^{}(𝐩)=𝐛^{}𝐩=_i_{\lambda _i}q_{\lambda _i}𝐛^{}𝐝^{\lambda _i}_iq_iB_i^{}_iq_ic_i=\overline{C}(𝐩)`$. ∎

Assuming Bell inequalities are written in this standard way where $`B_ic_i`$, it follows from (9) that for a given probability distribution $`𝐩`$, the inequality that leads to the strongest bound on $`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$ is the one for which $`B(𝐩)`$ takes the greatest value. In fact we have:

###### Proposition 3.

Let $`𝐛_{}`$ be the normalised inequality that gives the maximum violation $`B_{}(𝐩)=\mathrm{max}_𝐛\{B(𝐩)\}`$ for the correlations $`𝐩`$, then

$$\overline{C}(𝐩)=B_{}(𝐩)$$
(11)
###### Proof.

This follows from the duality theorem of linear programming Schrijver (1986). Indeed $`B_{}(𝐩)`$ is the solution to the following linear programming problem:

$`\mathrm{max}`$ $`𝐛𝐩`$ (12)
subject to $`𝐛𝐝^{\lambda _i}c_i\lambda _0,\mathrm{},\lambda _i,\mathrm{},\lambda _N`$
for the variable $`𝐛`$. The dual of that problem is

$`\mathrm{min}`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda _i}{}}c_iq_{\lambda _i}={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}c_iq_i`$ (13)
subject to $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda _i}{}}q_{\lambda _i}𝐝^{\lambda _i}=𝐩`$
$`q_{\lambda _i}0\lambda _0,\mathrm{},\lambda _i,\mathrm{},\lambda _N`$
for the variables $`q_{\lambda _i}`$. The solution to the dual problem is $`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$ since it just amounts to search for the optimal decomposition $`\{q_{\lambda _i}\}`$ of $`𝐩`$ which leads to the lowest average communication (note that the condition $`_i_{\lambda _i}q_{\lambda _i}=1`$ is in fact already implied by the normalisation conditions that $`𝐝^{\lambda _i}`$ and $`𝐩`$ satisfy). Now, the duality theorem of linear programming states that if the primal (dual) has an optimal solution, then the dual (primal) problem also has an optimal solution and moreover the two solutions coincide, i.e. $`B_{}(𝐩)=\overline{C}(𝐩)`$. ∎

This last result introduces the concept of an optimal inequality $`𝐛_{}`$ from the communication point of view for the correlations $`𝐩`$. Indeed the bounds (5) and (9) can be interpreted as bounds on the communication necessary to simulate classically a violation of the inequality $`𝐛`$ by the amount $`B(𝐩)`$. Of course this is also a bound on the average communication $`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$ necessary to reproduce the entire set of correlations $`𝐩`$. In general however, more communication may be necessary to carry out the latter task than the former. For the optimal inequality $`𝐛_{}`$, though, the communication is identical in the two cases. If we quantify non-locality by the amount of communication needed to simulate it classically, a violation of the inequality $`𝐛_{}`$ by the amount $`B_{}(𝐩)`$ therefore exhibit the complete non-locality contained in the correlations $`𝐩`$.

### II.4 Comparing Bell inequalities

The bound (5) simply expresses that the most efficient strategy to simulate a violation of a Bell inequality uses local deterministic protocols (which don’t necessitate any communication) and deterministic protocols from $`𝒟_j^{}`$ for which the ratio of violation per communication $`(B_j^{}B_0)/c_j^{}`$ is maximal. Indeed, for that strategy a violation of $`B(𝐩)=(1q_j^{})B_0+q_j^{}B_j^{}`$ implies

$$q_j^{}=\frac{B(𝐩)B_0}{B_j^{}B_0}$$
(14)
and thus a communication $`\overline{C}=q_j^{}c_j^{}=\frac{B(𝐩)B_0}{B_j^{}B_0}c_j^{}`$ which is nothing more than the right-hand side of (5).

The bound (5) can thus be viewed as the minimal communication needed to produce a given violation of the inequality $`𝐛`$. This allows us to compare the amount of violation of different Bell inequalities, possibly corresponding to different Bell scenarios. If the inequalities are normalised so that $`B_ic_i`$, the bound (9) holds and the comparison is even more direct: the greater the violation, the greater the non-locality exhibited by the inequality.

This way of weighing Bell inequalities is correct however only if $`B(𝐩)B_j^{}`$. Indeed if this is not the case, the strategy just described no more works since in (14) $`q_j^{}>1`$. Though the bounds (5) and (9) are still valid, it is then in principle possible to infer strongest bounds from the violation of the Bell inequality. This should be taken into account when comparing Bell inequalities in this way.

In the remainder of the paper, we will only be concerned with two settings Bell scenarios. Note that in that case, $`B(𝐩)B_j^{}`$ is always satisfied for quantum correlations. Indeed the minimal possible communication in a (non-local) deterministic protocol is 1 bit and is associated with strategies in $`𝒟_1`$. However every quantum correlation of a two settings Bell scenario can be reproduced with 1 bit of communication (indeed it suffices for one of the parties to send her input to the other so that they are able to simulate classically the quantum correlations). It therefore follows that $`B(𝐩)B_1B_j^{}`$.

### II.5 Other measures of communication

The general arguments we presented in this section remain valid independently of the precise way communication is counted and the way determinist strategies are accordingly partitioned. Depending on the physical quantity one is interested in, different measures for the communication cost $`c_i`$ are thus possible. For example to obtain bounds on the average communication needed to reproduce quantum correlations in classical protocols that use only 1-way communication, the cost of deterministic strategies using 2-way communication would be taken to be $`c=\mathrm{}`$. Our results therefore apply to all averaged-type measures of communication.

Note that one can also count the communication using Shanon’s entropy if it’s assumed that the parties may perform block coding. This is natural for instance if the parties perform several run of the protocol at once as in the definition of the asymptotic communication $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$. The resulting bound however will not be a lower bound on the asymptotic communication $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$. This is because for Bell scenarios corresponding to $`n`$ runs in parallel, there are deterministic strategies than can’t be written as the product of $`n`$ one-run deterministic strategies. As $`n`$ increases, there thus exist new ways of decomposing the correlations in term of deterministic protocols that can possibly result in lower communication per run but which are not taken into account in the one-run decomposition (2).

Finally, note that computing the communication costs associated to deterministic strategies is in general a difficult task. It is a particular problem of the field of communication complexity for which several techniques have been specially developed Kushilevitz and Nisan (1997). However in the case of the CHSH and the CGLMP inequality, the bound (5) can easily be deduced.

## III CHSH inequality

Let us now focus on the simplest inequality, the CHSH inequality Clauser et al. (1969). The CHSH inequality refers to two settings and two outcomes Bell scenarios. The value the inequality takes on an arbitrary vector $`𝐩`$ is

$`B(𝐩)=`$
$`p(a_0=b_0)+p(b_0a_1)+p(a_1=b_1)+p(b_1=a_0)`$
$`[p(a_0b_0)+p(b_0=a_1)+p(a_1b_1)+p(b_1a_0)]`$
where $`p(a_x=b_y)=p_{00|xy}+p_{11|xy}`$ and $`p(a_xb_y)=p_{10|xy}+p_{01|xy}`$. The local bound of this inequality is $`B_0=2`$. The maximal violation of the CHSH inequality by quantum mechanics is $`2\sqrt{2}`$ and is obtained by performing measurements on Bell states. On the other hand, the maximum value it can take for all possible distributions is 4 when the four terms with a plus sign are equal to one.

To derive a bound on $`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$ from (III), we need to compute $`\mathrm{max}_{j0}\{(B_jB_0)/c_j\}`$. Note that in a deterministic protocol, either the two parties don’t communicate at all, or one of the parties start speaking to the other. In the latter case, the minimum communication she can send is 1 bit. This implies that the minimum possible average communication for non-local deterministic strategies is $`c_1=1`$. The following protocol with entries $`d_{ab|xy}=\delta _{\alpha (x,y)}^a\delta _{\beta (x,y)}^b`$, where

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\alpha (x,y)=0& \multicolumn{3}{c}{\text{for}x,y=0,1}\\ \beta (0,0)=0& \beta (1,0)=1& \beta (0,1)=0& \beta (1,1)=0\end{array}$$
(16)
can be implemented with 1 bit of communication. Indeed it suffices for Alice to send the value of her input to Bob. Moreover, the value $`B(𝐝)`$ it takes on the inequality (III) is the maximum possible $`B(𝐝)=4`$. It thus follows that $`\mathrm{max}_{j0}\{(B_jB_0)/c_j\}=(42)/1=2`$, so that for the CHSH inequality the bound (5) becomes

$$\overline{C}(𝐩)\frac{1}{2}B(𝐩)1.$$
(17)
This implies for instance that to reproduce the optimal quantum correlations at least $`\sqrt{2}10.4142`$ bits of communication are necessary. Note that to reproduce all possible von Neumann measurements on a Bell state 1 bit is sufficient Toner and Bacon .

Is it possible to find a protocol that reproduces these correlations with that amount $`\overline{C}(𝐩)=\sqrt{2}1`$ of communication ? It turns out in fact that the CHSH inequality is optimal, i.e., the bound (17) is saturated, for all quantum correlations. Indeed, quantum correlations satisfy the no-signalling conditions:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{b}{}}p_{ab|xy}={\displaystyle \underset{b}{}}p_{ab|xy^{}}y,y^{}`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}p_{ab|xy}={\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}p_{ab|x^{}y}x,x^{}`$ (18)
which express that Alice’s marginal probabilities are independent of Bob’s input and conversely. For correlations that obey these constraints, we have:

###### Proposition 4.

$`\overline{C}(𝐩)=\frac{1}{2}B(𝐩)1`$ bits of communication are necessary and sufficient to simulate probabilities $`𝐩`$ that violate the CHSH inequality (III) and satisfy the no-signalling condition (III).

###### Proof.

As the “necessary” part follows from the bound (III), we just have to exhibit a classical protocol that reproduces the correlations with that amount of communication.

First note that when the bound (5) is saturated, it follows from the proof of Proposition 1 that the optimal protocol uses only strategies from $`𝒟_0`$ and $`𝒟_j`$ and moreover in these subsets only strategies that attain the maximal values $`B_0`$ and $`B_j`$ on the inequality $`𝐛`$ (there could be more than one subset $`𝒟_j`$ if they are several indexes $`j_{}`$ for which $`(B_jB_0)/c_j`$ is maximum). In our case, this implies that the optimal protocol must be built from local strategies $`𝐝^{\lambda _0}`$ and from $`1`$-bit strategies $`𝐝^{\lambda _1}`$ such that $`𝐛𝐝^{\lambda _0}=B_0=2`$ and $`𝐛𝐝^{\lambda _1}=B_1=4`$.

The entries of the vectors $`𝐩`$ corresponding to the Bell scenario associated with the CHSH inequality consists of 16 probabilities $`p_{ab|xy}`$ since $`a`$, $`b`$, $`x`$ and $`y`$ each take two possible values. Half of these probabilities appear with a plus sign in the CHSH expression (III) and half of them with a minus sign. Since entries $`d_{ab|xy}=\delta _{\alpha (x,y)}^a\delta _{\beta (x,y)}^b`$ of deterministic strategies are either equal to 0 or 1, for a deterministic strategy $`𝐝`$ to satisfy $`B(𝐝)=2`$, it must contribute to (III) with one $``$ and three $`+`$. For local strategies, which assign local values $`\alpha (x)`$ and $`\beta (y)`$ to Alice’s and Bob’s outcomes, this leaves eight possibilities. Indeed if we choose one of the eight entries appearing in (III) with a $``$ sign to be equal to one, the requirement that three entries appearing with a $`+`$ sign must also be equal to one, fully determines the functions $`\alpha (x)`$ and $`\beta (y)`$. The resulting eight possible local strategies $`𝐝^{\lambda _0}`$ ($`\lambda _0=0,\mathrm{}7`$) are given in Table I. On the other hand, for a deterministic strategy to attain $`B(𝐝)=4`$, it must contribute to (III) with four terms weighted by a $`+`$. The assignment of outcomes of 1-bit strategies $`𝐝^{\lambda _1}`$ are either of the form $`\alpha (x)`$, $`\beta (x,y)`$ (when Alice sends her input to Bob), or $`\alpha (x,y)`$, $`\beta (y)`$ (when it is Bob who sends his input to Alice). For each of the four possible functions $`\alpha (x)`$, the requirement that all the entries of the deterministic vector equal to one appear with a $`+`$ in the CHSH inequality fixes the function $`\beta (x,y)`$ and similarly for the four possible functions $`\beta (y)`$. There are thus eight protocols in $`𝒟_1`$ that attain the bound $`B_1=4`$. These strategies are given in Table II.

Having characterized the deterministic strategies from which the protocol is built, it remains to determine the probabilities $`q_\lambda `$ with which these strategies are used. These must be chosen so that

$$p_{ab|xy}=\underset{\lambda _0=0}{\overset{7}{}}q_{\lambda _0}d_{ab|xy}^{\lambda _0}+\underset{\lambda _1=0}{\overset{7}{}}q_{\lambda _1}d_{ab|xy}^{\lambda _1}$$
(19)
holds for the 16 entries $`p_{ab|xy}`$. Let’s focus first on the entries that enter in (III) with a $``$ sign. For each of these eight entries, the only contribution to the right-hand side of (19) different from zero comes from a local deterministic strategy $`𝐝^{\lambda _0}`$. This therefore fixes the value of the corresponding probability $`q_{\lambda _0}`$. For instance $`q_{0_0}=p_{00|10}`$ or $`q_{1_0}=p_{10|11}`$.

We now have to determine the value of the probabilities $`q_{\lambda _1}`$ so that the eight entries $`p_{ab|xy}`$ that enter (III) with a $`+`$ sign satisfy (19). For simplicity let’s focus on one of these entries: $`p_{00|00}`$. Using Tables I and II, equation (19) becomes

$$p_{00|00}=q_{0_0}+q_{1_0}+q_{4_0}+q_{0_1}+q_{2_1}+q_{4_1}+q_{6_1}$$
(20)
or

$$q_{0_1}+q_{2_1}+q_{4_1}+q_{6_1}=p_{00|00}p_{00|10}p_{10|11}p_{01|01}$$
(21)
where we replaced each of the probabilities $`q_{\lambda _0}`$ with their value previously determined. From (III) and using the no-signalling conditions (III) and the normalisation conditions (1), it is not difficult to see that the left-hand side of this equation is equal to $`(B(𝐩)2)/4`$. The same argument can be carried for all the seven other entries that contribute to the CHSH inequality with a $`+`$ sign, each time finding that the sum of four probabilities $`q_{\lambda _1}`$ equals $`(B(𝐩)2)/4`$. Taking $`q^{\lambda _1}=(B(𝐩)2)/16`$ for $`\lambda _1=0,\mathrm{},7`$ one therefore obtains a solution to (19).

The communication associated to this protocol is thus $`\overline{C}=_\lambda q_\lambda \overline{C}(𝐝^\lambda )=_{\lambda _1=0}^7q_{\lambda _1}=\frac{1}{2}B(𝐩)1`$. ∎

## IV More dimensions: the CGLMP inequality

The CGLMP inequality Collins et al. (2002) generalises the CHSH inequality for $`d`$-dimensional systems. This inequality refers to measurement scenarios where Alice’s and Bob’s local settings take two values $`x,y=0,1`$ and each measurement gives $`d`$ possible outcomes $`a,b=0,\mathrm{},d1`$. The value the CGLMP inequality takes on an arbitrary vector $`𝐩`$ is

$`B^d(𝐩)={\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{[d/2]1}{}}}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{2k}{d1}}\right)`$ (22)
$`(P(a_0=b_0+k)+P(b_0=a_1+k+1)`$
$`+P(a_1=b_1+k)+P(b_1=a_0+k)`$
$`[P(a_0=b_0k1)+P(b_0=a_1k)`$
$`+P(a_1=b_1k1)+P(b_1=a_0k1)])`$
where $`P(a_x=b_y+k)=_{b=0}^{d1}p_{(b+k)b|x,y}`$ is the probability that Alice and Bob results satisfy $`a=b+kmodd`$ when measuring $`x`$ and $`y`$. As shown in Collins et al. (2002), the local bound of the inequality is $`B_0^d=2`$.

When $`d=2`$ we recover the CHSH inequality and in that case the maximal quantum violation is $`B_{ME}^22.828`$. For $`d>2`$, the (conjectured) maximal violations obtained from maximally entangled qu$`d`$its are given in Collins et al. (2002). For qutrits the maximum is $`B_{ME}^32.8729`$ and this value increases with $`d`$. This suggests that the CGLMP inequality exhibits stronger non-local correlations for larger $`d`$. This has been made more precise by connecting the violation of the CGLMP inequality to the resistance of the correlations to the admixture of noise Collins et al. (2002). It has however been argued in Acín et al. (2002b), that the resistance to noise is not a good measure of non-locality. Quite surprisingly it was also found in Acín et al. (2002b) that for $`d>2`$ the strongest violation of the CGLMP inequality is obtained using certain non-maximally entangled states. For qutrits, for instance, the maximal violation obtained from a non-maximally entangled state is $`B_{NME}^32.9149`$ which is higher than the maximum $`B_{ME}^32.8729`$ for the maximally entangled one. Moreover, this discrepancy between maximally and non-maximally states grows with the dimension. This raises several questions on how one should interpret and compare these manifestations of non-locality.

A natural answer is through the bound (5). The derivation of the bound for the CHSH inequality in the previous section can directly be applied to the CGLMP inequality. This yields

$$\overline{C}^d(𝐩)\frac{1}{2}B^d(𝐩)1.$$
(23)
This bound is the same for all the inequalities of the family (22), and the strength of these different inequalities can therefore simply be measured by the degree by which they are violated. This confirms the intuition that the non-locality displayed by the CGLMP inequality grows with the dimension.

On the other hand, the fact that for $`d>2`$ the CGLMP inequality is maximally violated for non-maximally entangled states translates into more severe constraints on the average communication necessary to reproduce correlations obtained by measuring certain non-maximally entangled states than maximally entangled ones. For instance, for qutrits (23) implies that $`\overline{C}_{ME}0.4365`$ while $`\overline{C}_{NME}0.4575`$. It could however be that for maximally entangled states the CGLMP inequality is not optimal and that another inequality will impose stronger bounds for states that are maximally entangled.

To verify that assertion, we numerically solved the linear programming problem (13) for the correlations that maximally violate the CGLMP inequality both on maximally and non-maximally entangled states for $`d8`$. There exist many different algorithms for linear programming and the only difficulty in solving (13) is to characterize the sets $`𝒟_i`$ of deterministic strategies and their corresponding communication costs $`c_i`$. A deterministic strategy assigns a definite value $`\alpha (x,y)`$ to Alice’s outcomes and $`\beta (x,y)`$ to Bob’s outcomes for each of the four possible pair of inputs $`\{x,y\}`$, To simplify the notation we write $`\alpha _x(y)=\alpha (x,y)`$ and $`\beta _y(x)=\beta (x,y)`$. There are two possibilities for $`\alpha _x`$: either $`\alpha _x`$ is constant (cst), i.e., $`\alpha _x(0)=\alpha _x(1)`$, and given input $`x`$ Alice does not need any information from Bob to determine her output; or $`\alpha _x\text{cst}`$, that is $`\alpha _x(0)\alpha _x(1)`$, and Alice’s outcome depends not only on her local setting $`x`$ but also on Bob’s one. In that case Alice needs one bit of information from Bob to output her result. The situation is similar for Bob. This leads to four possible sets of deterministic strategies:

i) $`𝒟_0`$: the set of local deterministic strategies for which $`\alpha _x=\text{cst}`$ and $`\beta _y=\text{cst}`$ for $`x=0,1`$ and $`y=0,1`$. These don’t need any communication to be implemented: $`c_0=0`$.

ii) $`𝒟_1`$: the strategies where $`\alpha _x=\text{cst}`$ for $`x=0,1`$ and at least one of the $`\beta _y\text{cst}`$. These strategies necessitate 1 bit of communication from Alice to Bob. This set also contains the reverse strategies which need 1 bit of communication from Bob to Alice. The communication cost associated to $`𝒟_1`$ is therefore $`c_1=1`$.

iii) $`𝒟_2`$: the protocols where $`\alpha _x=\text{cst}`$ for one of the two values $`x=0`$ or $`x=1`$, $`\alpha _{\overline{x}}\text{cst}`$ for the other value $`\overline{x}`$ and at least one of the $`\beta _y\text{cst}`$. These strategies can be implemented by Alice sending one bit to Bob, the value of her input, and then Bob sending back to Alice the value of his input if Alice’s input equals $`\overline{x}`$. The average communication exchanged is $`3/2`$ bits so that $`c_2=3/2`$. This set also contains the strategies where Alice’s and Bob’s positions are permuted.

iv) $`𝒟_3`$: $`\alpha _x\text{cst}`$ and $`\beta _y\text{cst}`$ for $`x=0,1`$ and $`y=0,1`$. To implement these strategies both parties need to know the input of the other, so $`c_3=2`$.

With this assignment of communication costs to deterministic strategies and for the correlations considered ($`d8`$), it turns out from the results of the numerical optimisation (13) that the CGLMP inequality is optimal, i.e. the bound (23) is saturated. For these particular measurements, those that gives rise to the maximal violation of the CGLMP inequality, more communication is thus necessary to reproduce results obtained on non-maximally entangled states than maximally entangled ones.

It is nevertheless possible that these measurements are not optimal to detect the non-locality of maximally entangled states. We performed numerical searches for $`d=3`$, optimising the two von Neumann measurements the parties may choose. We found that the measurements that necessitate the maximal communication to be simulated are the ones that maximise the CGLMP inequality. These results therefore suggest that two measurement settings on each side do not optimally detect non-locality for $`d3`$. It is still possible that the simulatation of POVMs on maximally entangled states would necessitate further communication. However, concurring with Acín et al. (2002b), we believe that more settings per site and a corresponding new Bell inequality are needed <sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1A candidate might be the inequality introduced by Bechmann-Pasquinucci and Gisin (quant-ph/0204122) which is maximally violated for maximally entangled states..

## V Optimal inequalities and facet inequalities

The CHSH and the CGLMP inequalities are special inequalities: they are facet inequalities. Local correlations $`𝒍`$ are convex combinations of a finite number of points, the local deterministic strategies: $`𝒍=_{\lambda _0}q_{\lambda _0}𝐝^{\lambda _0}`$. The set of local correlations thus forms a convex polytope. Every polytope can be characterized either by its vertices (the local deterministic strategies) or by its facets which are a finite set of inequalities $`𝐛^i`$ ($`i=1,\mathrm{},M)`$

$$𝒍=\underset{\lambda _0}{}q_{\lambda _0}d^{\lambda _0}𝐛^i𝒍B_0^ii=1,\mathrm{}M$$
(24)
Facet inequalities thus form a minimal set of inequalities that fully characterize the local correlations. They can therefore be viewed as tight detectors of non-locality. Complete sets of facet inequalities are known in some cases Fine (1982); Pitowsky and Svozil (2001); Werner and Wolf (2002); Żukowski and Brukner (2002). For two settings, two outcomes Bell scenarios, the CHSH is the unique (up to symmetries and besides trivial inequalities that are always satisfied by quantum correlations) facet inequality. It turns out that it is also optimal with regard to the average communication $`\overline{C}`$ for all quantum correlations. For Bell scenarios involving more outcomes, we have seen that the CGLMP inequality is optimal for certain correlations.

Is it the case that for quantum correlations, optimal inequalities are always facet inequalities ? Consider for instance the following correlations belonging to a two settings, three outcomes Bell scenario: Alice and Bob share the maximally entangled state of two qutrits $`|\psi =1/\sqrt{3}(|00+|11+|22)`$. The measurements they perform consist of each carrying out the transformation $`|ie^{i\varphi (i)}|i`$, followed by a Fourier Transform $`U_{FT}`$ for Alice and $`U_{FT}`$ for Bob and then a measurement in the computational basis. The settings of their measuring apparatus are thus determined by the three phases they use. For Alice’s setting $`x=0`$ and $`x=1`$ the phases are $`(0,0,0)`$ and $`(0,0,\pi /2)`$, while for Bob’s settings $`y=0`$ and $`y=1`$ they are $`(0,0,\pi /4)`$ and $`(0,0,\pi /4)`$. This results in the probabilities

$`p(a_x=b_y)=\left(5+(1)^{f(x,y)}2\sqrt{2}\right)/9`$
$`p(a_x=b_y+1)=\left(2(1)^{f(x,y)}\sqrt{2}\right)/9`$
$`p(a_x=b_y+2)=\left(2(1)^{f(x,y)}\sqrt{2}\right)/9`$ (25)
where $`f(x,y)=x(y+1)`$.

These correlations violate the CGLMP inequality by the amount $`B^3(𝐩)=\frac{2}{3}(1+2\sqrt{2})2.5523`$. On the other hand, consider the inequality (III), which has to be viewed now as a three outcomes inequality, i.e. $`p(a_x=b_y)=_kp_{kk|xy}`$ and $`p(a_xb_y)=_{kl}p_{kl|xy}`$ where the sum over $`k`$ and $`l`$ runs from 0 to 2. The above correlations violate this straightforward generalisation of the CHSH inequality to more outcomes by the amount $`B^{3c}(𝐩)=\frac{2}{9}(1+8\sqrt{2})2.7364`$. Since for both inequalities $`\overline{C}(𝐩)\frac{1}{2}B(𝐩)1`$, the generalised CHSH inequality is stronger than the CGLMP ones for these particular correlations. Moreover, numerically solving the linear problem (13) we found $`\overline{C}(𝐩)=0.3682`$ so that the bound $`\overline{C}(𝐩)0.3682`$ implied by the generalised CHSH is saturated, i.e. the inequality is optimal.

The generalised CHSH inequality, however, is not a facet inequality. Indeed, for an inequality to be a facet, the local deterministic strategies that attain the local bound $`B_0`$ (i.e. the vertices that belong to the facet) must generate a space of dimension one less than the dimension of the polytope, since they form its boundary. It is shown in Masanes  that the two settings three outcomes polytope lies in a hyperplane of dimension 24. For the inequality (III), it is easily checked that there are only 21 local deterministic strategies that attain the limit $`B_0=2`$. They thus generate at best a space of dimension 21 which is less than the expected value of 23 for (III) to be a facet.

Does there exist a facet inequality that imposes the same bound $`\overline{C}(𝐩)0.3682`$ as the generalised CHSH inequality ? There exist algorithms that compute all the facets of a polytope given its vertices. Using both the reverse search vertex enumeration algorithm algo1  and the double description method algo2  we obtained the complete set of facet inequalities of the two settings, three outcomes local polytope which consists of 1116 inequalities. The correlations described above violate 23 of these inequalities.

Note that there are various ways of writing a Bell inequality which are equivalent for local and quantum correlations. Indeed local and quantum correlations satisfy the normalisation (1) and no-signalling conditions (III) which we express as the constraints

$$𝐠^j𝐩=G^jj=1,\mathrm{}J$$
(26)
For probabilities that satisfy these conditions, the inequality $`𝐛𝐩B`$ can be rewritten in the equivalent form

$$(\mu _0𝐛+\underset{j}{}\mu _j𝐠^j)𝐩\mu _0B+\underset{j}{}\mu _jG^j$$
(27)
In particular, with that rewriting, a facet inequality will remain a facet inequality and an inequality which is violated by correlations satisfying (26) will still be violated. This can be geometrically understood as follows. Probabilities that satisfy the constraints (26) lie in a hyperplane $`𝒢`$ of dimension less than the total dimension of the space $`𝒫`$ of all vectors $`𝐩`$. An inequality $`𝐛𝐩B`$ defines a half-space in $`𝒫`$. The fact that for probabilities in $`𝒢`$, Bell inequalities can be written in different equivalent ways corresponds to the fact that they are different half-spaces of $`𝒫`$ that have the same intersection with the hyperplane $`𝒢`$. It is shown in Masanes  that the dimension of the two settings three outcomes polytope (the set of all local correlations), is the same as the hyperplane $`𝒢`$ defined by the conditions (26) of normalisation and no-signalling. It therefore follows that the rewriting (27) based on these constraints is the unique way to rewrite Bell inequalities in an equivalent form for local correlations.

However, for probabilities which do not satisfy all of these constraints, such as non-local deterministic strategies $`𝒟_{i0}`$, the rewritten inequalities (27) are not equivalent to the original one. They will thus lead to different bounds on $`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$. The strongest bound on $`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$ a facet inequality $`𝐛`$ will impose on the correlations $`𝐩`$ is the solution to the following linear programming problem for the variables $`\mu _j`$:

$`\mathrm{max}`$ $`\mu _0B(𝐩)+{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\mu _jG^j`$ (28)
subject to $`\left(\mu _0𝐛+{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\mu _j𝐠^j\right)𝐝^{\lambda _i}c_i`$
We numerically solved this linear problem for the correlations described above and each of the 23 facet inequalities they violate. The strongest bound obtained was given by the CGLMP inequality and is $`\overline{C}(𝐩)0.2764`$.

This examples shows that there exist quantum correlations for which the strongest bound on $`\overline{C}(𝐩)`$ deduced from facet inequalities is lower than the (optimal) bound given from a non-facet inequality. This is contrary to the common view according to which facet inequalities are “optimal” tests of non-locality Masanes .

## VI Conclusion

In summary, we have shown that the average communication necessary to simulate classically a violation of a Bell inequality is proportional to degree of violation of the inequality. Moreover, to each set of correlations is associated an optimal inequality for which that communication is also sufficient to reproduce the entire set of correlations. The key ingredient was to compare the amount of violation of Bell inequalities not only with the maximum value they takes on local deterministic strategies, but also on non-local ones that necessitate some communication to be implemented.

Part of the interest of this work is that it gives a physical meaning to the degree of violation of Bell inequalities and thus provides an objective way to compare violation of different inequalities. It also gives a new way to view and understand Bell inequalities that could shed new light on some of their aspects. For instance, it was commonly assumed that facet inequalities are optimal tests of non-locality because they are tight “detectors” of non-locality. However if we measure non-locality by the communication needed to reproduce it, in certain situations non-facet inequalities are better “meters” of non-locality than are facet ones.

This work also provides a tool to characterize and quantify the non-locality inherent in quantum correlations. As a result, for instance, for two measurements on each side it seems that the correlations that necessitate the most communication to be reproduced are obtained on non-maximally entangled states rather than on maximally entangled ones for $`d>2`$. It would be interesting to know whether this is still the case for more settings and if not, what is the corresponding Bell inequality.

###### Acknowledgements.

I would like to thank Jonathan Barrett and Serge Massar for stimulating discussions and useful comments on this manuscript. I acknowledge financial support from the Communauté Française de Belgique under grant ARC 00/05-251, from the IUAP program of the Belgian governement under grant V-18, and from the EU under project RESQ (IST-2001-37559).