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Covering the sphere with noncontextuality inequalities

Sven-Patrik Hallsjö

Published Jan 1, 2014• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this Bachelor’s thesis the following question is answered: Does the inequality posed in the article Klyachko et al [2008] cover the real part of the Bloch surface of a 3D quantum system when used as in Kochen and Specker [1967]? The Klyachko inequality relies on using five measurements to show contextuality of a subset of states on the real part of the Bloch surface. These can now be used in several configurations as present in the Kochen-Specker contextuality proof, by simply rotating the measurements. We show here that these new inequalities will have subsets of violation that eventually cover the entire real part of the Bloch surface. This can be extended to show that all states of a spin 1 system are non-contextual, so that we have recovered a state-independent contextuality proof by using the Klyachko inequality several times. In the final part, an interpretation of this is given and also some recommendations for further research that should be done in the field.

DOI
10.13140/rg.2.1.1148.5684

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In this Bachelor’s thesis the following question is answered: Does the inequality posed in the article Klyachko et al [2008] cover the real part of the Bloch surface of a 3D quantum system when used as in Kochen and Specker [1967]? The Klyachko inequality relies on using five measurements to show contextuality of a subset of states on the real part of the Bloch surface. These can now be used in several configurations as present in the Kochen-Specker contextuality proof, by simply rotating the measurements. We show here that these new inequalities will have subsets of violation that eventually cover the entire real part of the Bloch surface. This can be extended to show that all states of a spin 1 system are non-contextual, so that we have recovered a state-independent contextuality proof by using the Klyachko inequality several times. In the final part, an interpretation of this is given and also some recommendations for further research that should be done in the field.
In this Bachelor’s thesis the following question is answered: Does the inequality posed in the article Klyachko et al [2008] cover the real part of the Bloch surface of a 3D quantum system when used as in Kochen and Specker [1967]? The Klyachko inequality relies on using five measurements to show contextuality of a subset of states on the real part of the Bloch surface. These can now be used in several configurations as present in the Kochen-Specker contextuality proof, by simply rotating the measurements. We show here that these new inequalities will have subsets of violation that eventually cover the entire real part of the Bloch surface. This can be extended to show that all states of a spin 1 system are noncontextual, so that we have recovered a state-independent contextuality proof by using the Klyachko inequality several times. In the final part, an interpretation of this is given and also some recommendations for further research that should be done in the field.
Quantum contextuality is one of the fundamental notions in quantum mechanics. Proofs of the Kochen–Specker theorem and noncontextuality inequalities are two means for revealing the contextuality phenomenon in quantum mechanics. It has been found that some proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem, such as those based on rays, can be converted to a state-independent noncontextuality inequality, but it remains open whether this is true in general, i.e., whether any proof of the Kochen-Specker theorem can always be converted to a noncontextuality inequality. In this paper, we address this issue. We prove that all kinds of proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem, based on rays or any other observables, can always be converted to state-independent noncontextuality inequalities. Besides, our constructive proof also provides a general approach for deriving a state-independent noncontextuality inequality from a proof of the KS theorem.
We show that three unsharp binary qubit measurements are enough to violate a generalized noncontextuality inequality, the Liang-Spekkens-Wiseman inequality, in a state-dependent manner. For the case of trine spin axes we calculate the optimal quantum violation of this inequality. In addition, we show that unsharp qubit measurements do not allow a state-independent violation of this inequality. We thus provide a minimal state-dependent proof of measurement contextuality requiring one qubit and three unsharp measurements. Our result rules out generalized noncontextual models of these measurements which were previously conjectured to exist. More importantly, this class of generalized noncontextual models includes the traditional Kochen-Specker (KS) noncontextual models as a proper subset, so our result rules out a larger class of models than those ruled out by a violation of the corresponding KS inequality in this scenario.
Quantum contextuality, as proved by Kochen and Specker, and also by Bell, should manifest itself in any state in any system with more than two distinguishable states and recently has been experimentally verified. However, for the simplest system capable of exhibiting contextuality, a qutrit, the quantum contextuality is verified only state dependently in experiment because too many (at least 31) observables are involved in all the known state-independent tests. Here we report an experimentally testable inequality involving only 13 observables that is satisfied by all noncontextual realistic models while being violated by all qutrit states. Thus our inequality facilitates a state-independent test of the quantum contextuality for an indivisible quantum system. We also provide a record-breaking state-independent proof of the Kochen-Specker theorem with 13 directions determined by 26 points on the surface of a magic cube.
Violation of a noncontextuality inequality or the phenomenon referred to `quantum contextuality' is a fundamental feature of quantum theory. In this article, we derive a novel family of noncontextuality inequalities along with their sum-of-squares decompositions in the simplest (odd-cycle) sequential-measurement scenario capable to demonstrate Kochen-Specker contextuality. The sum-of-squares decompositions allow us to obtain the maximal quantum violation of these inequalities and a set of algebraic relations necessarily satisfied by any state and measurements achieving it. With their help, we prove that our inequalities can be used for self-testing of three-dimensional quantum state and measurements. Remarkably, the presented self-testing results rely on a single assumption about the measurement device that is much weaker than the assumptions considered in Kochen-Specker contextuality.
This thesis is centered around mathematical structures of fundamental importance to quantum foundations and quantum information. Its introductory part acquaints the reader with the basics of the general ideas of frames and simplices, as well as with some central quantum mechanical concepts like density matrices and Hilbert spaces. Article I deals with the question of contextuality in relation to quantum measurement. Using a specific strategy of assigning truth values to state vectors, some aspects of the Kochen-Specker theorem are explored. In Article II an object called SIC-POVM is studied, more specifically by investigating the behaviour of a function used to measure the closeness of an arbitrary vector set to such a configuration. In addition to putting the results of these two papers into context, the aim of this thesis is to offer a discussion of the search for connections between the SIC-POVM and so-called MUBs in odd prime dimensions, as well as a brief comment on a structure here introduced as a Kochen-Specker frame; it is shown that the latter plays a part in the proof of Hardy’s paradox as well as for an inequality for testing contextuality due to Klyachko et al.