We present a measurement strategy for the analysis of the state independent contextuality paradox in the quantum statistics of a pair of qubits using a sequence of state preparation, weak measurement and output post-selection.
Abstract We analyse the quantum Cheshire cat using contextuality theory, to see if this can tell us anything about how best to interpret this paradox. We show that this scenario can be analysed using the relation between three different measurements, which seem to result in a logical contradiction. We discuss how this contextual behaviour links to weak values, and coherences between prohibited states. Rather than showing a property of the particle is disembodied, the quantum Cheshire cat instead demonstrates the effects of these coherences, which are typically found in pre- and post-selected systems.
The quantum fluctuations of a physical property can be observed in the measurement statistics of any measurement that is at least partially sensitive to that physical property. Quantum theory indicates that the effective distribution of values taken by the physical property depends on the specific measurement context based on which these values are determined and weak values have been identified as the contextual values describing this dependence of quantum fluctuations on the measurement context. Here, the relation between classical statistics and quantum contextuality is explored by considering systems entangled with a quantum reference. The quantum fluctuations of the system can then be steered by precise projective measurements of the reference, resulting in different contextual values of the quantum fluctuations depending on the effective state preparation context determined by the measurement of the reference. The results show that mixed-state statistics are consistent with a wide range of potential contexts, indicating that the precise definition of a context requires maximal quantum coherence in both state preparation and measurement.
In this presentation, I argue that weak measurements empirically support the notion of quantum superpositions as statistical alternatives. In short, weak measurements show that Schroedinger's cat is already dead or alive before the measurement. The collapse of the wavefunction in a strong measurement should therefore be separated into the statistical selection of one of the available alternatives and a physical interaction that causes decoherence. The application to entanglement reveals that measurements in A have no physical effect in B, resolving the paradox of Bell`s inequality violation in favor of locality and against (non-empirical) realism.
If a quantum system is prepared and later post-selected in certain states, "paradoxical" predictions for intermediate measurements can be obtained. This is the case both when the intermediate measurement is strong, i.e. a projective measurement with Luders-von Neumann update rule, or with weak measurements where they show up in anomalous weak values. Leifer and Spekkens [quant-ph/0412178] identified a striking class of such paradoxes, known as logical pre- and post-selection paradoxes, and showed that they are indirectly connected with contextuality. By analysing the measurement-disturbance required in models of these phenomena, we find that the strong measurement version of logical pre- and post-selection paradoxes actually constitute a direct manifestation of quantum contextuality. The proof hinges on under-appreciated features of the paradoxes. In particular, we show by example that it is not possible to prove contextuality without Luders-von Neumann updates for the intermediate measurements, nonorthogonal pre- and post-selection, and 0/1 probabilities for the intermediate measurements. Since one of us has recently shown that anomalous weak values are also a direct manifestation of contextuality [arXiv:1409.1535], we now know that this is true for both realizations of logical pre- and post-selection paradoxes.