Peter D. Drummond

We show that violation of genuine multipartite Bell inequalities can be obtained with sampled, probabilistic phase space methods. These genuine Bell violations cannot be replicated if any part of the system is described by a local hidden variable theory. The Bell violations are simulated probabilistically using quantum phase-space representations. We treat mesoscopically large Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states having up to 60 qubits, using both a multipartite SU(2) Q-representation and the positive P-representation. Surprisingly, we find that sampling with phase-space distributions can be exponentially faster than experiment. This is due to the classical parallelism inherent in the simulation of quantum measurements using phase-space methods. Our probabilistic sampling method predicts a contradiction with local realism of "Schrödinger-cat" states that can be realized as a GHZ spin state, either in ion traps or with photonic qubits. We also present a quantum simulation of the observed super-decoherence of the ion-trap "cat" state, using a phenomenological noise model.

We carry out probabilistic phase-space sampling of mesoscopic Schrödinger cat quantum states, demonstrating multipartite Bell violations for up to 60 qubits. We use states similar to those generated in photonic and ion-trap experiments. These results show that mesoscopic quantum superpositions are directly accessible to probabilistic sampling, and we analyze the properties of sampling errors. We also demonstrate dynamical simulation of super-decoherence in ion traps. Our computer simulations can be either exponentially faster or slower than experiment, depending on the correlations measured.