Symmetric observations without symmetric causal explanations

Article Article scientifique Article Symmetric observations without symmetric causal explanations eng 2026-03-26 author William Christian 0009-0004-2663-4316 Université de Genève 945995 author Remy Patrick Université de Genève 922761 author Bancal Jean-Daniel 0000-0002-9630-0993 556632 author Cai Yu 0000-0001-7001-6815 909584 author Brunner Nicolas 0000-0002-2104-9191 Université de Genève 510523 Serv com physique appliquée (FIGCO) author Pozas Kerstjens Alejandro 0000-0002-3853-3545 Université de Genève 413050 Serv com physique appliquée (FIGCO) 032219 10.1103/y4tn-cx43 2469-9926 https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/y4tn-cx43 Inferring causal models from observed correlations is a challenging task, crucial to many areas of science. In order to alleviate the computational effort when sifting through possible causal explanations for some given observations, it is important to know whether symmetries in the observations correspond to symmetries in the underlying realization so that one can quickly discard impossible explanations. Via an explicit example, we demonstrate that, in general, symmetries cannot be exploited to reduce the hypothesis space. We use a tripartite probability distribution over binary events that is realized by using three (different) independent sources of classical randomness. We prove that even removing the condition that the sources distribute systems described by classical physics, the requirements that (i) the sources distribute the same physical systems, (ii) these physical systems respect relativistic causality, and (iii) the correlations are the observed ones are incompatible. Quantum correlations, foundations & formalism Quantum foundations Quantum information theory Dewey 500.2 National Research Foundation Singapore National Quantum-Safe Network NRF2021-QEP2-04-P01 Swiss National Science Foundation Quantum correlations in networks 192244 CH Swiss National Science Foundation Certification and cryptography in quantum networks 224561 CH 35 Groupe de physique appliquée 135 false 801 Groupe Brunner https://zenodo.org/records/14899768 Physical review, A 113 3 ccae0164-1adc-4756-9ada-2855995d2b5c Article (Published version) Restricted Article_scientifique_from_crossref.pdf 452895 application/pdf e7036ac1b3284e64f8309b3409a84e9055d5d8292e2fe2e2bc86a426721c746e restrictedAccess Faculté des sciences / Section de physique / Groupe de physique appliquée

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William, Christian