The entropic approach to causal correlations

The existence of a global causal order between events places constraints on the correlations that parties may share. Such 'causal correlations' have been the focus of recent attention, driven by the realization that some extensions of quantum mechanics may violate so-called causal inequalities. In this paper we study causal correlations from an entropic perspective, and we show how to use this framework to derive entropic causal inequalities. We consider two different ways to derive such inequalities. Firstly, we consider a method based on the causal Bayesian networks describing the causal relations between the parties. In contrast to the Bell-nonlocality scenario, where this method has previously been shown to be ineffective, we show that it leads to several interesting entropic causal inequalities. Secondly, we consider an alternative method based on counterfactual variables that has previously been used to derive entropic Bell inequalities. We compare the inequalities obtained via these two methods and discuss their violation by noncausal correlations. As an application of our approach, we derive bounds on the quantity of information—which is more naturally expressed in the entropic framework—that parties can communicate when operating in a definite causal order. (paper)