Contextuality in quantum physics provides a key resource for quantum information and computation. The topological approach in [Abramsky and Brandenburger, New J. Phys., 2011, Abramsky et al., CSL 2015, 2015] characterizes contextuality as "global inconsistency" coupled with "local consistency", revealing it to be a phenomenon also found in many other fields. This has yielded a logical method of detecting and proving the "global inconsistency" part of contextuality. Our goal is to capture the other, "local consistency" part, which requires a novel approach to logic that is sensitive to the topology of contexts. To achieve this, we formulate a logic of local inference by using context-sensitive theories and models in regular categories. This provides a uniform framework for local consistency, and lays a foundation for high-level methods of detecting, proving, and moreover using contextuality as computational resource.
Contextuality in quantum physics provides a key resource for quantum information and computation. The topological approach in [Abramsky and Brandenburger, New J. Phys., 2011, Abramsky et al., CSL 2015, 2015] characterizes contextuality as "global inconsistency" coupled with "local consistency", revealing it to be a phenomenon also found in many other fields. This has yielded a logical method of detecting and proving the "global inconsistency" part of contextuality. Our goal is to capture the other, "local consistency" part, which requires a novel approach to logic that is sensitive to the topology of contexts. To achieve this, we formulate a logic of local inference by using context-sensitive theories and models in regular categories. This provides a uniform framework for local consistency, and lays a foundation for high-level methods of detecting, proving, and moreover using contextuality as computational resource.
The main subjects of this thesis are non-locality and contextuality, two fundamental features of quantum mechanics that constitute valuable resources for quantum computation. Our analysis is based on Abramsky & Brandenburger's sheaf theoretic framework, which captures both these phenomena in a unified treatment and in a very general setting. This high-level description transcends quantum physics and allows to precisely characterise the notion of contextuality as the apparent paradox realised by data being locally consistent but globally inconsistent. More specifically, we aim to develop a deeper understanding of so-called logical forms of contextuality, i.e. situations where the phenomenon can be witnessed using purely logical arguments, disregarding probabilities. The sheaf theoretic description of logical contextuality has recently inspired the development of a topological treatment of the phenomenon based on sheaf cohomology. In this thesis, we embark on a detailed analysis of the cohomology of contextuality, exposing key shortcomings in the current methods, and introducing an (almost) complete cohomological characterisation of logical forms of contextuality. More specifically, we show that, in its current formulation, sheaf cohomology does not constitute a complete invariant for contextuality, not even in its strongest forms, and that higher cohomology groups cannot be used to study the phenomenon. Then, we solve these issues by introducing a novel construction, which derives refined versions of the presheaves describing empirical models to expose their deeper extendability properties, resulting in a sheaf cohomological invariant which is applicable to the vast majority of empirical models, and conjectured to work universally. We propose a general theory of contextual semantics using the language of valuation algebras. In particular, we give a general definition of contextual behaviour as a fundamental gap between local agreement and global disagreement of information sources. Not only does this formalism aptly capture and generalise the known instances of contextuality beyond quantum theory, but it also provides inspiration for further applications of the phenomenon, and paves the way for the transfer of results and techniques between different fields. We give a prime example of this potential by developing faster algorithms to detect contextuality based on mainstream methods of generic inference. Finally, we turn our attention back to instances of contextuality in quantum physics, and study strong contextuality in multi-qubit states. We give a complete combinatorial characterisation of All-vs-Nothing proofs of strong contextuality in stabiliser quantum mechanics. This allows to produce the complete list of all stabiliser states exhibiting this kind of contextuality, which consitututes an important resource in certain models of quantum computation. Then, we extend our search for strongly contextual behaviour beyond stabiliser states, and identify the minimum quantum resources needed to realise strong non-locality. Additional results include a partial classification of strongly non-local models comprised of three-qubit states and local projective measurements, and the introduction of a new infinite family of strongly non-local three-qubit states.
Abramsky and Brandenburger show that nonlocality and contextuality arise when locally compatible data cannot be glued into a single global assignment. In a global topological data space, interactions among locally defined maps can produce patterns that are consistent within each context yet incompatible globally—the empirical hallmark of quantum contextuality. We make this concrete with an evolving simplicial-bundle framework and apply this framework to several standard empirical models in quantum foundations.
The sheaf theoretic description of non-locality and contextuality by Abramsky and Brandenburger sets the ground for a topological study of these peculiar features of quantum mechanics. This viewpoint has been recently developed thanks to sheaf cohomology, which provides a sufficient condition for contextuality of empirical models in quantum mechanics and beyond. Subsequently, a number of studies proposed methods to detect contextuality based on different cohomology theories. However, none of these cohomological descriptions succeeds in giving a full invariant for contextuality applicable to concrete examples. In the present work, we introduce a cohomology invariant for possibilistic and strong contextuality which is applicable to the vast majority of empirical models.
Contextuality is a key feature of quantum mechanics that provides an important non-classical resource for quantum information and computation. Abramsky and Brandenburger used sheaf theory to give a general treatment of contextuality in quantum theory [New Journal of Physics 13 (2011) 113036]. However, contextual phenomena are found in other fields as well, for example database theory. In this paper, we shall develop this unified view of contextuality. We provide two main contributions: firstly, we expose a remarkable connection between contexuality and logical paradoxes; secondly, we show that an important class of contextuality arguments has a topological origin. More specifically, we show that "All-vs-Nothing" proofs of contextuality are witnessed by cohomological obstructions.
Contextuality has become a cornerstone of modern foundational approaches to quantum physics. This paper introduces contextual mathematics (CM), a categorical framework for context-indexed observations and agent-dependent evaluation. Contexts are organized into a category Ctx, and observation is modeled as a contravariant bifunctor into an epistemic category E; context refinements induce restriction maps, and a Grothendieck construction organizes evaluations over agent–context pairs. We show how the established sheaf-theoretic account of Kochen–Specker contextuality (Abramsky–Brandenburger) can be represented inside this framework, recovering non-existence of a global section as the relevant obstruction. We then formulate, as comparison problems rather than established equivalences, several further candidate obstruction theories that a fully developed CM might connect to this sheaf-theoretic core: homological extension classes (Ext1 ), Kan-extension reconstruction, deformation-quantization cocycles, and device-dependent restriction in algebraic quantum field theory (AQFT) over globally hyperbolic spacetimes. We are explicit about which of these connections are proved, which are illustrative analogies, and which remain open.
Non-locality and contextuality are key features of quantum mechanics that distinguish it from classical physics. We aim to develop a deeper, more structural understanding of these phenomena, underpinned by robust and elegant mathematical theory with a view to providing clarity and new perspectives on conceptual and foundational issues. A general framework for logical non-locality is introduced and used to prove that 'Hardy's paradox' is complete for logical non-locality in all (2,2,l) and (2,k,2) Bell scenarios, a consequence of which is that Bell states are the only entangled two-qubit states that are not logically non-local, and that Hardy non-locality can be witnessed with certainty in a tripartite quantum system. A number of developments of the unified sheaf-theoretic approach to non-locality and contextuality are considered, including the first application of cohomology as a tool for studying the phenomena: we find cohomological witnesses corresponding to many of the classic no-go results, and completely characterise contextuality for large families of Kochen-Specker-like models. A connection with the problem of the existence of perfect matchings in k-uniform hypergraphs is explored, leading to new results on the complexity of deciding contextuality. A refinement of the sheaf-theoretic approach is found that captures partial approximations to locality/non-contextuality and can allow Bell models to be constructed from models of more general kinds which are equivalent in terms of non-locality/contextuality. Progress is made on bringing recent results on the nature of the wavefunction within the scope of the logical and sheaf-theoretic methods. Computational tools are developed for quantifying contextuality and finding generalised Bell inequalities for any measurement scenario which complement the research programme. This also leads to a proof that local ontological models with `negative probabilities' generate the no-signalling polytopes for all Bell scenarios.