
generate statistics P(b|x)that certify that even exter-
nal eavesdroppers with additional (classical) knowledge
cannot predict b. As in standard DI quantum informa-
tion, the security of semi-DI protocols does not require
any assumptions on the inner-workings of the devices,
but it requires some constraint on the physical system
that is communicated between the devices [5,9,18]. This
has often been implemented with a bound on the di-
mension of the Hilbert space of the transmitted system,
restricting the communication to qubits or qutrits, as
in [5,12,18,19], although this is arguably not very well-
motivated for non-idealized physical scenarios. An al-
ternative scheme was provided in [9,17], in which the
mean value of some observable H(such as the energy of
the transmitted system) was constrained. This formu-
lation, however, requires trust in the valid characteri-
zation of the observable H, including, for example, the
assumption of a specific gap above the ground state. In
fact, the physical meaning of H(say, as the generator
of time translations) plays no direct role in their analy-
sis. Here, instead, we propose semi-DI assumptions on
quantities like spin or energy, which anchor the secu-
rity of the resulting protocols on properties of spacetime
physics that are directly related to the interpretation of
these quantities. Not only are these assumptions ar-
guably physically well-motivated, but they can also be
formulated without assuming the validity of quantum
theory, as we will show below. This is in contrast to
dimension bounds or assumptions on the expectation
values of observables, which rely crucially on the valid-
ity of quantum theory.
3 Quantum boxes
Let us start by describing the setup in terms of quan-
tum theory, which we will later generalize to a theory-
agnostic description. We consider two devices (Fig. 1).
The first device prepares some quantum state ρ1and
takes an input x∈ {1,2}. The experimenter either does
nothing to the device (i.e. applies R0=1if x= 1), or
rotates it by an angle αaround a fixed axis relative to
the other device (i.e. applies the rotation Rα, if x= 2).
After the rotation, the physical system is prepared and
sent to the second device. The second device produces
an outcome b∈ {±1}, and is described by a POVM
(positive operator-valued measure) {Mb}. Minimal as-
sumptions are made about the devices [20], such that
ρ1and Mbare treated as unknown and may fluctuate
according to some shared random variable λ.
While we allow such shared randomness (see Eq. (7)
below), we do not allow shared entanglement between
preparation and measurement devices, which is a stan-
dard assumption in the semi-DI context [21]. Disallow-
ing this, and demanding that the full preparation device
is rotated, prevents the rotation from being applied only
to a part of the emitted system, which in turn prevents
the appearance of detectable relative phases like (−1)
for a 2π-rotation of spin-1/2fermions.
Well-known arguments (e.g. in [22, Sec. 13.1]) im-
ply that fundamental symmetries, such as the rotations
Rα, must act as unitary transformations Uαon Hilbert
space, furnishing a projective representation of the sym-
metry group (here SO(2)). All finite-dimensional pro-
jective representations of SO(2) can be written in the
form
Uα=
J
M
j=−J
eijα1nj,(1)
where jruns over either integers or half-integers, and
nj∈ {0,1,2. . .}. The assumption about the response
of the system to rotations is implemented via an up-
per bound Jon the absolute value of these labels. For
details see Appendix B.
Fixing some J∈ {0,1
2,1,3
2, . . .}introduces an as-
sumption on the physical system that is sent from the
preparation to the measurement device, namely, on its
possible response to spatial rotations. This is what
makes our scenario semi-DI, and what replaces the more
common assumption on the Hilbert space dimension of
the transmitted system. It is important to note that we
do not fix the numbers nj, thus allowing for the num-
ber of copies to vary, i.e. the Hilbert space dimension is
not bounded by this. The number Jupper-bounds the
spin or angular momentum quantum number associated
with the physical system that is sent from the prepara-
tion to the measurement device. For example, if we
have a single particle of spin J, then Uα= exp(iαZJ),
where ZJ= diag(J, J −1,...,−J)is the spin-Jrepre-
sentation of the Pauli Zmatrix, such that nj= 1 for
j=−J, −J+ 1, . . . , J. However, since the njare arbi-
trary, the representation (1) is allowed to be reducible,
which includes the case of composite systems. For ex-
ample, if the measurement probes helicity with a po-
larizer, then sending a single photon corresponds to a
scenario with J= 1, and Nphotons to J=N[25].
Moreover, every J′> N will serve as a valid upper
bound.
Our mathematical formulation does not presuppose
that the SO(2)-representation must arise from spatial
rotations: it could also arise for some other reason, e.g.
from periodicity of time evolution. However, the spe-
cial case that the preparation device is physically ro-
tated in space is a paradigmatic instance in which the
group symmetry is manifestly imposed from special co-
variance [24].
We are interested in the possible correlations between
outcome band setting xthat can be obtained under
an assumption on Jvia Eq. (1) in the quantum case.
Let us for the moment assume that the initial state ρ1
is a pure state ρ1=|ϕ1⟩⟨ϕ1|, then |ϕ2⟩=Uα|ϕ1⟩is
prepared on input x= 2, and the observable M=M1−
M−1characterizes the measurement procedure. If we
consider all possible pure states |ϕx⟩and observables M
arising from POVMs {Mb}b∈{−1,+1}in this way, then
QJ,α :={(E1, E2)|Ex=⟨ϕx|M|ϕx⟩,|ϕ2⟩=Uα|ϕ1⟩}
(2)
2