Adversarial Stress Tests for Quantum Certification

Abstract

We develop a practical framework for semi-device-independent (SDI) certification under operational deviations from the ideal protocol model. Apparent violations of classical benchmarks need not signal genuinely non-classical behaviour; they can arise from misalignment between (i) the scoring rule, (ii) the finite-sample statistical bound applied to that score, and (iii) the operational model realised in the experiment, including bias, memory, drift, and selection effects. We formalise a protocol-agnostic alignment principle based on a martingale-safe lower confidence bound and an operationally consistent effective classical ceiling. This yields a quantitative diagnostic, the \emph{robustness gap} $Δ_{\mathrm{rob}} = S_{\mathrm{low}} - S_{C,\mathrm{eff}}$, which separates statistical fluctuations from structural modelling errors. Statistical deviations vanish asymptotically, whereas model misalignment can produce persistent false certification unless the benchmark is corrected. Using the $2\!\to\!1$ random access code as a minimal SDI testbed, we show that postselection can inflate conditional scores, whereas unconditional scoring restores the correct operational meaning of the witness. We further show that adaptive learning-based classical agents do not enlarge the admissible classical set; rather, they recover the effective classical ceiling implied by the operational model. The resulting framework provides a systematic diagnostic for certification in realistic quantum communication and measurement settings with embedded classical control, adaptive processing, and nonideal data acquisition.