Aubrun Guillaume, Lami Ludovico, Palazuelos Carlos, Plávala Martin
Institut Camille Jordan, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 43 boulevard du 11 novembre 1918, 69622 Villeurbanne CEDEX, France.
Institute of Theoretical Physics and IQST, Universität Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee, 11D-89069 Ulm, Germany.
Phys Rev Lett. 2022 Apr 22;128(16):160402. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.160402.
We prove that given any two general probabilistic theories (GPTs) the following are equivalent: (i) each theory is nonclassical, meaning that neither of their state spaces is a simplex; (ii) each theory satisfies a strong notion of incompatibility equivalent to the existence of "superpositions"; and (iii) the two theories are entangleable, in the sense that their composite exhibits either entangled states or entangled measurements. Intuitively, in the post-quantum GPT setting, a superposition is a set of two binary ensembles of states that are unambiguously distinguishable if the ensemble is revealed before the measurement has occurred, but not if it is revealed after. This notion is important because we show that, just like in quantum theory, superposition in the form of strong incompatibility is sufficient to realize the Bennett-Brassard 1984 protocol for secret key distribution.