Parts and Wholes. An Inquiry into Quantum and Classical Correlations

Understand

** The primary topic of this dissertation is the study of the relationships between parts and wholes as described by particular physical theories, namely generalized probability theories in a quasi-classical physics framework and non-relativistic quantum theory.

• ** A large part of this dissertation is devoted to understanding different aspects of four different kinds of correlations: local, partially-local, no-signaling and quantum mechanical correlations.
• Novel characteristics of these correlations have been used to study how they are related and how they can be discerned via Bell-type inequalities that give non-trivial bounds on the strength of the correlations.
• ** The study of quantum correlations has also prompted us to study a) the multi-partite qubit state space with respect to its entanglement and separability characteristics, and b) the differing strength of the correlations in separable and entangled qubit states.