Experimental test of environment-assisted invariance

Abstract

Envariance, or environment-assisted invariance, is a recently identified symmetry for maximally entangled states in quantum theory with important ramifications for quantum measurement, specifically for understanding Born's rule. We benchmark the degree to which nature respects this symmetry by using entangled photon pairs. Our results show quantum states can be (99.66±0.04)% envariant as measured using the quantum fidelity, and (99.963±0.005)% as measured using a modified Bhattacharya coefficient, as compared with a perfectly envariant system which would be 100% in either measure. The deviations can be understood by the less-than-maximal entanglement in our photon pairs.