On the relationship between convex bodies related to correlation experiments with dichotomic observables

In this paper we explore further the connections between convex bodies related to quantum correlation experiments with dichotomic variables and related bodies studied in combinatorial optimization, especially cut polyhedra. Such a relationship was established in Avis et al ( 2005 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 38 10971 - 87) with respect to Bell inequalities. We show that several wellknown bodies related to cut polyhedra are equivalent to bodies such as those defined by Tsirelson ( 1993 Hadronic J. Suppl. 8 329 - 45) to represent hidden deterministic behaviours, quantum behaviours and no- signalling behaviours. Among other things, our results allow a unique representation of these bodies, give a necessary condition for vertices of the no- signalling polytope, and give a method for bounding the quantum violation of Bell inequalities by means of a body that contains the set of quantum behaviours. Optimization over this latter body may be performed efficiently by semidefinite programming. In the second part of the paper we apply these results to the study of classical correlation functions. We provide a complete list of tight inequalities for the two party case with ( m, n) dichotomic observables when m = 4, n = 4 and when min{m, n} <= 3, and give a new general family of correlation inequalities.