Maximum violations of the quantum-witness equality

Abstract

We consider the quantum witness test of macroscopic realism and derive an upper bound for possible violations of this equality due to quantum mechanics. The bound depends only on the number of possible outcomes for the blind measurement at the heart of the witness protocol. Mirroring recent results for the related Leggett-Garg inequality, we show that quantum mechanics can saturate the algebraic bound for large systems. We also establish a connection between the quantum witness and the trace distance between density matrices.