No Arabic abstract
It is well known that certain measurement scenarios behave in a way which can not be explained by classical theories but by quantum theories. This behaviours are usually studied by Bell or non-contextuality (NC) inequalities. Knowing the maximal classical and quantum bounds of this inequalities is interesting, but tells us little about the quantum set Q of all quantum behaviours P. Despite having a constructive description of the quantum set associated to a given inequality, the freedom to choose quantum dimension, quantum states, and quantum measurements makes the shape of such convex bodies quite elusive. It is well known that a NC-inequality can be associated to a graph and the quantum set is a combinatorial object. Extra conditions, like Bell concept of parts, may restrict the behaviours achievable within quantum theory for a given scenario. For the simplest case, CHSH inequality, the NC and Be
The connection between contextuality and graph theory has led to many developments in the field. In particular, the sets of probability distributions in many contextuality scenarios can be described using well known convex sets from graph theory, leading to a beautiful geometric characterization of such sets. This geometry can also be explored in the definition of contextuality quantifiers based on geometric distances, which is important for the resource theory of contextuality, developed after the recognition of contextuality as a potential resource for quantum computation. In this paper we review the geometric aspects of contextuality and use it to define several quantifiers, which have the advantage of being applicable to the exclusivity approach to contextuality, where previously defined quantifiers do not fit.
Exploring the graph approach, we restate the extended definition of noncontextuality provided by the contextuality-by-default framework. This extended definition avoids the assumption of nondisturbance, which states that whenever two contexts overlap, the marginal distribution obtained for the intersection must be the same. We show how standard tools for characterizing contextuality can also be used in this extended framework for any set of measurements and, in addition, we also provide several conditions that can be tested directly in any contextuality experiment. Our conditions reduce to traditional ones for noncontextuality if the nondisturbance assumption is satisfied.
We report a method that exploits a connection between quantum contextuality and graph theory to reveal any form of quantum contextuality in high-precision experiments. We use this technique to identify a graph which corresponds to an extreme form of quantum contextuality unnoticed before and test it using high-dimensional quantum states encoded in the linear transverse momentum of single photons. Our results open the door to the experimental exploration of quantum contextuality in all its forms, including those needed for quantum computation.
Quantum teleportation plays a key role in modern quantum technologies. Thus, it is of much interest to generate alternative approaches or representations aimed at allowing us a better understanding of the physics involved in the process from different perspectives. With this purpose, here an approach based on graph theory is introduced and discussed in the context of some applications. Its main goal is to provide a fully symbolic framework for quantum teleportation from a dynamical viewpoint, which makes explicit at each stage of the process how entanglement and information swap among the qubits involved in it. In order to construct this dynamical perspective, it has been necessary to define some auxiliary elements, namely virtual nodes and edges, as well as an additional notation for nodes describing potential states (against nodes accounting for actual states). With these elements, not only the flow of the process can be followed step by step, but they allow us to establish a direct correspondence between this graph-based approach and the usual state vector description. To show the suitability and versatility of this graph-based approach, several particular teleportation examples are examined, which include bipartite, tripartite and tetrapartite maximally entangled states as quantum channels. From the analysis of these cases, a general protocol is discussed in the case of sharing a maximally entangled multi-qubit system.
A central result in the foundations of quantum mechanics is the Kochen-Specker theorem. In short, it states that quantum mechanics is in conflict with classical models in which the result of a measurement does not depend on which other compatible measurements are jointly performed. Here, compatible measurements are those that can be performed simultaneously or in any order without disturbance. This conflict is generically called quantum contextuality. In this article, we present an introduction to this subject and its current status. We review several proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem and different notions of contextuality. We explain how to experimentally test some of these notions and discuss connections between contextuality and nonlocality or graph theory. Finally, we review some applications of contextuality in quantum information processing.