Graphical tests of causality

Bell inequalities limit the possible observations of non-communicating parties. Here, we present analogous inequalities for any number of communicating parties under the causal constraints of static causal order,definite causal order,and bi-causal order.All derived inequalities are remarkably simple. They correspond to upper bounds on the winning chance in graphical games:Given a specific directed graph over the parties, the parties are challenged to communicate along a randomly chosen arc. In the case of definite causal order, every game that we find is specified by a kefalopoda digraph.Based on this we define weakly causal correlations as those that satisfy all kefalopoda inequalities. We show that the problem of deciding whether some correlations are weakly causal is solvable in polynomial time in the number of parties.

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Publication Details

Journal
Dépôt institutionnel de l'Université libre de Bruxelles (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Published
2026-09-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jlamp.2026.101133
Primary Topic
Game Theory and Applications
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Graphical tests of causality

Ämin Baumeler, Stefan Wolf, Eleftherios Ermis Tselentis
Dépôt institutionnel de l'Université libre de Bruxelles (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Game Theory and Applications
article

Graphical tests of causality

Ämin Baumeler, Stefan Wolf, Eleftherios Ermis Tselentis
article en

Abstract

Bell inequalities limit the possible observations of non-communicating parties. Here, we present analogous inequalities for any number of communicating parties under the causal constraints of static causal order,definite causal order,and bi-causal order.All derived inequalities are remarkably simple. They correspond to upper bounds on the winning chance in graphical games:Given a specific directed graph over the parties, the parties are challenged to communicate along a randomly chosen arc. In the case of definite causal order, every game that we find is specified by a kefalopoda digraph.Based on this we define weakly causal correlations as those that satisfy all kefalopoda inequalities. We show that the problem of deciding whether some correlations are weakly causal is solvable in polynomial time in the number of parties.

Dépôt institutionnel de l'Université libre de Bruxelles (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Université Libre de Bruxelles (BE), Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique (FR), Università della Svizzera italiana (CH)
National Science Foundation, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Fonds De La Recherche Scientifique - FNRS
Reduced inequalities
Openalex Percentile: Top 49%
Game Theory and Applications
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