Quantum Inflation: A General Approach to Quantum Causal Compatibility

Causality is a seminal concept in science: any research discipline, from sociology and medicine to physics and chemistry, aims at understanding the causes that could explain the correlations observed among some measured variables. While several methods exist to characterize classical causal models, no general construction is known for the quantum case. In this work we present quantum inflation, a systematic technique to falsify if a given quantum causal model is compatible with some observed correlations. We demonstrate the power of the technique by reproducing known results and solving open problems for some paradigmatic examples of causal networks. Our results may find an application in many fields: from the characterization of correlations in quantum networks to the study of quantum effects in thermodynamic and biological processes.