We extend the topos-theoretic treatment given in previous papers of assigning values to quantities in quantum theory. In those papers, the main idea was to assign a sieve as a partial and contextual truth value to a proposition that the value of a quantity lies in a certain set $Δ\subseteq \mathR$. Here we relate such sieve-valued valuations to valuations that assign to quantities subsets, rather than single elements, of their spectra (we call these `interval' valuations). There are two main results. First, there is a natural correspondence between these two kinds of valuation, which uses the notion of a state's support for a quantity (Section 3). Second, if one starts with a more general notion of interval valuation, one sees that our interval valuations based on the notion of support (and correspondingly, our sieve-valued valuations) are a simple way to secure certain natural properties of valuations, such as monotonicity (Section 4).
The Kochen-Specker theorem is a fundamental result in quantum foundations that has spawned massive interest since its inception. We show that within every Kochen-Specker graph, there exist interesting subgraphs which we term $01$-gadgets, that capture the essential contradiction necessary to prove the Kochen-Specker theorem, i.e,. every Kochen-Specker graph contains a $01$-gadget and from every $01$-gadget one can construct a proof of the Kochen-Specker theorem. Moreover, we show that the $01$-gadgets form a fundamental primitive that can be used to formulate state-independent and state-depend…
We introduce a new class of complex Hadamard matrices which have not been studied previously. We use these matrices to construct a new infinite family of parity proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem. We show that the recently discovered simple parity proof of the Kochen-Specker theorem is the initial member of this infinite family.
In the paper it is argued that the Kochen-Specker theorem necessitates a conclusion that for a quantum system it is possible to find a set of projection operators which is not truth-value bivalent; that is, a bivalent truth-value assignment function imposed on such a set cannot be total. This means that at least one proposition associated with the said set must be neither true nor false.
In a recent work, it was shown by one of us (EGC) that Bell-Kochen-Specker inequality violations in phenomena satisfying the no-disturbance condition (a generalisation of the no-signalling condition) cannot in general be explained with a faithful classical causal model -- that is, a classical causal model that satisfies the assumption of no fine-tuning. The proof of that claim however was restricted to Bell scenarios involving 2 parties or Kochen-Specker-contextuality scenarios involving 2 measurements per context. Here we show that the result holds in the general case of arbitrary numbers of …
If noncontextuality is defined as the robustness of a system's response to a measurement against other simultaneous measurements, then the Kochen-Specker arguments do not provide an algebraic proof for quantum contextuality. Namely, for the argument to be effective, (i) each operator must be uniquely associated with a measurement and (ii) commuting operators must represent simultaneous measurements. However, in all Kochen-Specker arguments discussed in the literature either (i) or (ii) is not met. Arguments meeting (i) contain at least one subset of mutually commuting operators which do not re…
Contextuality provides one of the fundamental characterizations of quantum phenomena, and can be used as a resource in lots of quantum information processing. In this paper, we summarize and derive some equivalent noncontextual inequalities from different noncontextual models of the proofs for Kochen-Specker theorem based on Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states. These noncontextual inequalities are equivalent up to some correlation items which hold both for noncontextual hidden variable theories and quantum mechanics. Therefore, using single-photon hyperentangled Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger stat…
