Paper detail

Globe-hopping

We consider versions of the grasshopper problem (Goulko and Kent, 2017) on the circle and the sphere, which are relevant to Bell inequalities. For a circle of circumference $2π$, we show that for unconstrained lawns of any length and arbitrary jump lengths, the supremum of the probability for the grasshopper&#39;s jump to stay on the lawn is one. For antipodal lawns, which by definition contain precisely one of each pair of opposite points and have length $π$, we show this is true except when the jump length $ϕ$ is of the form $π\frac{p}{q}$ with $p,q$ coprime and $p$ odd. For these jump lengths we show the optimal probability is $1 - 1/q$ and construct optimal lawns. For a pair of antipodal lawns, we show that the optimal probability of jumping from one onto the other is $1 - 1/q$ for $p,q$ coprime, $p$ odd and $q$ even, and one in all other cases. For an antipodal lawn on the sphere, it is known (Kent and Pitalúa-García, 2014) that if $ϕ= π/q$, where $q \in \mathbb N$, then the optimal retention probability of $1-1/q$ for the grasshopper&#39;s jump is provided by a hemispherical lawn. We show that in all other cases where $0<ϕ< π/2$, hemispherical lawns are not optimal, disproving the hemispherical colouring maximality hypotheses (Kent and Pitalúa-García, 2014). We discuss the implications for Bell experiments and related cryptographic tests.