mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Coherent Swap Regret and Channel-Proof Learning

arXiv 2606.02655 ↗First posted 1 Jun 2026quant-ph cs.GT cs.LGcited by 0

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Abstract (arXiv)

External regret certifies stability only against replacing one's behavior by a fixed alternative. In a quantum game, this misses a natural physical move: a player can apply a local completely positive trace-preserving (CPTP) map to the state it actually received or prepared. We introduce coherent swap regret as the regret benchmark against all such local CPTP deviations, and give an algorithm achieving O(√dTlog d) coherent swap regret via entropic mirror ascent on the CPTP Choi slice with a fixed-point play rule. The main result is a three-level deviation-class landscape. Replacement channels recover ordinary external regret at rate Theta(√Tlog d). Unital channels, including unitary deviations and mixtures of unitaries, have zero minimax regret. Deterministic measurement-and-preparation channels already force Omega(√dTlog d) regret in the moderate-horizon regime, and this rate is also sufficient for all CPTP deviations. Thus the hardness comes from non-unital use of the recommendation register, not from quantum coherence alone. As an application, decentralized full-information learning in finite quantum games reaches an varepsilon-approximate separable quantum correlated equilibrium after T=O(maxi dilog di/varepsilon2) rounds. We identify these equilibria with channel-proofness of mediated quantum recommendation protocols, give an SDP audit for local CPTP exploitability applicable to arbitrary finite-dimensional states, and include a probing-bandit extension with pseudo-regret O(d4/3T2/3(log d)1/3) under Haar-random pure-state probes.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 8 of its 23 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 1 Jun 2026.

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References · 8

  1. 2018Online Learning of Quantum Statescited by 37
  2. 2023No-Regret Learning and Equilibrium Computation in Quantum Gamescited by 5
  3. 2024Online learning of a panoply of quantum objectscited by 5
  4. 2023A Quadratic Speedup in Finding Nash Equilibria of Quantum Zero-Sum Gamescited by 4
  5. 2023Payoff-based learning with matrix multiplicative weights in quantum gamescited by 2
  6. 2024Online learning of quantum processescited by 2
  7. 2015Quantum game players can have advantage without discordcited by 1
  8. 2025Instance-Optimal Matrix Multiplicative Weight Update and Its Quantum Applicationscited by 1

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