On the Advantage of Irreversible Processes in Single-System Games

The CHSH no-signalling game studies Bell nonlocality by showcasing a gap between the win rates of classical strategies, quantum-entangled strategies, and no-signalling strategies. Similarly, the CHSH* single-system game explores the advantage of irreversible processes by showcasing a gap between the win rates of classical reversible strategies, quantum reversible strategies, and irreversible strategies. The irreversible process of erasure rules supreme for the CHSH* single-system game, but this erasure advantage does not necessarily extend to every single-system game: We introduce the 32-Game, in which reversibility is irrelevant and only the distinction between classical and quantum operations matters. We showcase our new insight by modifying the CHSH* game to make it erasure-immune, while conserving its quantum advantage. We conclude by the reverse procedure: We tune the 32-Game to make it erasure-vulnerable, and erase its quantum advantage in the process. The take-home message is that, when the size of the single-system is too small for Alice to encode her whole input, quantum advantage and erasure advantage can happen independently.