# “Haunted” quantum contextuality

## Abstract

Two entangled particles in threedimensional Hilbert space (per particle) are considered in an EPR-type arrangement. On each side the Kochen-Specker observables $`\{J_1^2,J_2^2,J_3^2\}`$ and $`\{\overline{J}_1^2,\overline{J}_2^2,J_3^2\}`$ with $`[J_1^2,\overline{J}_1^2]0`$ are measured. The outcomes of measurements of $`J_3^2`$ (via $`J_1^2,J_2^2`$) and $`J_3^2`$ (via $`\overline{J}_1^2,\overline{J}_2^2`$) are compared. We investigate the possibility that, although formally $`J_3^2`$ is associated with the same projection operator, a strong form of quantum contextuality states that an outcome depends on the complete disposition of the measurement apparatus, in particular whether $`J_1^2`$ or $`\overline{J}_1^2`$ is measured alongside. It is argued that in this case it is impossible to measure contextuality directly, a necessary condition being a non-operational counterfactuality of the argument.

http://tph.tuwien.ac.at/$`\stackrel{~}{}`$svozil/publ/context.$`\{`$ps,tex$`\}`$

Besides complementarity, contextuality  is another, more subtle nonclassical feature of quantum mechanics. That is, one and the same physical observable may appear different, depending on the context of measurement; i.e., depending on the particular way it was inferred. Stated differently, the outcome of a physical measurement may depend also on other physical measurements which are coperformed. In Bell’s own words \[1, section 5\], “The result of an observation may reasonably depend not only on the state of the system $`\mathrm{}`$ but also on the complete disposition of the apparatus.” This property is usually referred to as contextuality.

Formally, contextuality may be related to the nonexistence of two-valued measures on Hilbert logics  and the partial algebra of projection operators  when the dimension of the Hilbert space is higher than two. Contextuality then expresses the impossibility to construct consistently truth values of the whole physical system by any arrangement of truth values of “proper parts” thereof. The term “proper part” refers to any maximal number of independent comeasurable observables corresponding to commuting self-adjoint operators. In quantum logics , these are denoted by boolean subalgebras or “blocks” which can be represented by a single “maximal” observable. The entirety of all proper parts is then identified with the whole physical system. By definition, no union of different proper parts can itself be a proper part, because there are always observables in the constituents which are not comeasurable with another observable from any other different proper part. This does not exclude that, for Hilbert spaces of dimension greater than two, there may exist one or more elements of different proper parts which coincide. Indeed, we shall encounter a system with three observables $`A,B`$ and $`C`$ such that $`[A,B]=[A,C]=0`$, whereas $`[B,C]0`$. Therefore, although the proper parts are “classical mini-universes” by the way they are constructed, their whole is not, because it presupposes counterfactual reasoning. (Indeed, Specker \[16, in German\] has been motivated by scholastic speculations of the so-called “infuturabilities,” or “possibilities”).

In what follows, we propose to test contextuality by an EPR-type measurement of one and the same observable, but with different comeasurable observables. The difference to the usual EPR-type setup is the identity of the observables and the specific attention paid to other comeasurable observables, which are usually disregarded. (For similar considerations, see an article by Heywood and Redhead .) Any argument of this kind must necessarily involve Hilbert spaces of dimension higher than two, since because of orthogonality, for two or lower dimensions, if two observables are identical, all other comeasurable observables are identical as well.

We shall adopt the original system of observables used by Kochen and Specker . These observables are defined in threedimensional Hilbert space and are based upon the spin one observable along an arbitrary unit vector $`(x_1,x_2,x_3)=(\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi ,\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\varphi ,\mathrm{cos}\theta )𝐑^3`$, with polar coordinates $`0\theta \pi `$ and $`0\varphi <2\pi `$. The radius is set to unity. The corresponding hermitian $`(3\times 3)`$-matrix is given by

$$S(\theta ,\varphi )=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{cos}\theta & \frac{e^{i\varphi }\mathrm{sin}\theta }{\sqrt{2}}& 0\\ \frac{e^{i\varphi }\mathrm{sin}\theta }{\sqrt{2}}& 0& \frac{e^{i\varphi }\mathrm{sin}\theta }{\sqrt{2}}\\ 0& \frac{e^{i\varphi }\mathrm{sin}\theta }{\sqrt{2}}& \mathrm{cos}\theta \end{array}\right).$$
(1)   
The spin state observables $`J_1,J_2,J_3`$ ($`\mathrm{}=1`$) along the three cartesian coordinate axes $`x=(1,0,0)(\pi /2,0,1)`$, $`y=(0,1,0)(\pi /2,\pi /2,1)`$ and $`z=(0,0,1)(0,0,1)`$ are just given by (cf. Gudder \[17, pp. 54-57\])

$$J_1=S(\frac{\pi }{2},0),J_2=S(\frac{\pi }{2},\frac{\pi }{2}),J_3=S(0,0),$$
(2)   
and

$$S^{}(x_1,x_2,x_3)=x_1J_1+x_2J_2+x_3J_3,$$
(3)   
where the asterisk “$``$” indicates that the arguments are the usual cartesian coordinates. Spin state measurements along another orthogonal tripod $`\overline{x},\overline{y},\overline{z}`$ can be easily represented by $`S(\overline{x}),S(\overline{y})`$ and $`S(\overline{z})`$.

Consider now the squares of the spin state observables introduced in Equation (2).

$$J_1^2=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 1\\ 0& 2& 0\\ 1& 0& 1\end{array}\right),J_2^2=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 1\\ 0& 2& 0\\ 1& 0& 1\end{array}\right),J_3^2=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right).$$
(4)   
Let us consider another system of $`\overline{J}_i^2`$’s rotated by $`\varphi 0\text{ mod }\pi /2`$ along the $`z=(0,0,1)`$-axis. According to Equation (1),

$$\overline{J}_1^2=\left(S(\frac{\pi }{2},\varphi )\right)^2,\overline{J}_2^2=\left(S(\frac{\pi }{2},\varphi +\frac{\pi }{2})\right)^2,\overline{J}_3^2=\left(S(0,0)\right)^2.$$
(5)   
By inspection, it can be verified that the $`J_i^2`$’s and $`\overline{J}_i^2`$’s form two mutually commuting systems; i.e.,

$`[J_1^2,J_2^2]=[J_1^2,J_3^2]=[J_2^2,J_3^2]=0,`$   
$`[\overline{J}_1^2,\overline{J}_2^2]=[\overline{J}_1^2,\overline{J}_3^2]=[\overline{J}_2^2,\overline{J}_3^2]=0.`$   
But not all $`J_i^2`$’s commute with all $`\overline{J}_i^2`$’s. For instance, $`[\overline{J}_1^2,J_1^2]0.`$ Indeed, only $`J_3^2`$ commutes with $`\overline{J}_3^2`$, because these operators are identical.

As has already been pointed out by von Neumann , for any system of mutually commuting self-adjoint operators $`H_1,H_2,\mathrm{}`$ there exists a maximal operator $`U`$ such that all $`H_i`$’s are functions $`f_i`$ of $`U`$; i.e.,

$$H_i=f_i(U).$$
(6)   
Applying this result to the two systems of mutually commuting operators $`\{J_1^2,J_2^2,J_3^2\}`$ and $`\{\overline{J}_1^2,\overline{J}_2^2,\overline{J}_3^2\}`$ yields two maximal operators $`U`$ and $`\overline{U}`$ and sets of functions $`f_i`$, $`\overline{f}_i`$ such that

$$J_i^2=f_i(U)\mathrm{and}\overline{J}_i^2=\overline{f}_i(\overline{U}),i=1,2,3.$$
(7)   
In particular,

$$J_3^2=f_3(U)=\overline{f}_3(\overline{U})=\overline{J}_3^2.$$
(8)   
More explicitly , let $`abca`$ and

$`U`$ $`=`$ $`aJ_1^2+bJ_2^2+cJ_3^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}a+b+2c& 0& ab\\ 0& 2a+2b& 0\\ ab& 0& a+b+2c\end{array}\right),`$ (12)   
$`\overline{U}(\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{a}\overline{J}_1^2+\overline{b}\overline{J}_2^2+\overline{c}\overline{J}_3^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\overline{a}+\overline{b}+2\overline{c}& 0& (\overline{a}\overline{b})e^{2i\varphi }\\ 0& 2\overline{a}+2\overline{b}& 0\\ (\overline{a}\overline{b})e^{2i\varphi }& 0& \overline{a}+\overline{b}+2\overline{c}\end{array}\right).`$ (16)   
The diagonal form of $`U`$ and $`\overline{U}`$ is $`\mathrm{diag}(a+b,b+c,a+c)`$ and $`\mathrm{diag}(\overline{a}+\overline{b},\overline{b}+\overline{c},\overline{a}+\overline{c})`$ respectively. Measurement of $`U`$ can, for instance, be realized by a set of beam splitters ; or in an arrangement proposed by Kochen and Specker . Any such measurement will yield either the eigenvalue $`a+b`$ (exclusive) or the eigenvalue $`b+c`$ (exclusive) or the eigenvalue $`a+c`$. Since $`a,b,c`$ are mutually distinct, the eigenvalues of $`U`$ are nondegenerate.

At the same time, $`J_1^2,J_2^2,J_3^2`$ are orthogonal projection operators in $`𝐑^3`$: they are idempotent $`J_i^2J_i^2=J_i^2`$, with eigenvalues $`0`$ and $`1`$ for $`i=1,2,3`$. (The same is true for any system $`\overline{J}_1^2,\overline{J}_2^2,\overline{J}_3^2`$.) Alternatively, they can be identified with onedimensional orthogonal subspaces of $`𝐑^3`$ which in turn are spanned by the orthogonal vectors $`(1,0,0)`$, $`(0,1,0)`$ and $`(0,0,1)`$. In quantum logic, they can be identified with atomic propositions and can be conveniently represented by hypergraphs called “Greechie diagrams,” in which points represent atoms and all orthogonal atoms belonging to the same tripod are represented by edges or smooth curves. The spatial configuration of subspaces as well as the associated Greechie diagram of the combined systems $`J_1^2,J_2^2,J_3^2`$ and $`\overline{J}_1^2,\overline{J}_2^2,\overline{J}_3^2`$ are drawn in Figure 1.

The $`J_3^2`$ and $`\overline{J}_3^2`$ are then polynomials of $`U`$ and $`\overline{U}`$, respectively; i.e.,

$`J_3^2=f_3(U)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(cb)(ac)}}\left[U^2U(a+b+2c)+2(a+b)c𝐈\right],`$ (17)   
$`\overline{J}_3^2=\overline{f}_3(\overline{U})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\overline{c}\overline{b})(\overline{a}\overline{c})}}\left[\overline{U}^2\overline{U}(\overline{a}+\overline{b}+2\overline{c})+2(\overline{a}+\overline{b})\overline{c}𝐈\right].`$ (18)   
Furthermore,

$$J_1^2+J_2^2+J_3^2=\overline{J}_1^2+\overline{J}_2^2+\overline{J}_3^2=2𝐈,$$
(19)   
indicating that since the possible eigenvalues of any $`J_i^2,i=1,2,3`$ are either 0 or 1, the eigenvalues of two observables $`J_i^2,i=1,2,3`$ must be 1, and one must be 0. Thus any measurement of the maximal operator $`U`$ yields $`a+b`$ associated with $`J_1^2=J_2^2=1`$, $`J_3^2=0`$ (exclusive) or $`a+c`$ associated with $`J_1^2=J_3^2=1`$, $`J_2^2=0`$ (exclusive) or $`b+c`$ associated with $`J_2^2=J_3^2=1`$, $`J_1^2=0`$.

Now consider an EPR-type arrangement with two particles in an identical state

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}`$ $`\left[|a+b|a+b+|a+c|a+c+|b+c|b+c\right]`$ (39)   
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}\left[\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\\ 0\end{array}\right)\times \left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\\ 0\end{array}\right)+\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\\ 1\end{array}\right)\times \left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\\ 1\end{array}\right)+\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\\ 1\end{array}\right)\times \left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\\ 1\end{array}\right)\right]`$   
The quantum numbers $`a+b`$, $`a+c`$ and $`b+c`$ refer to the eigenstates of $`U`$ with eigenvalues $`a+b`$, $`a+c`$ and $`b+c`$, respectively. The eigenvalues and eigenstates of $`\overline{U}`$ are $`\overline{a}+\overline{b}`$, $`\overline{a}+\overline{c}`$, $`\overline{b}+\overline{c}`$ and $`(0,1,0)`$, $`(e^{2i\varphi },0,1)`$, and $`(e^{2i\varphi },0,1)`$, respectively.

Now consider the following question: assume $`U`$ and $`\overline{U}`$ are measured for the right and the left particle separately. (Of course, one may also successively measure $`\{J_1^2,J_2^2,J_3^2\}`$ and $`\{\overline{J}_1^2,\overline{J}_2^2,\overline{J}_3^2\}`$.) Would the outcome of the measurement of $`J_3^2=\overline{J}_3^2`$ be different, depending on whether it was derived from $`U`$ or $`\overline{U}`$?

There are at least three alternative answers which will be discussed shortly.

“Strong” contextuality assumption (I): Although $`J_3^2`$ and $`\overline{J}_3^2`$ are identical operators, $`U`$ and $`\overline{U}`$ are not; and the associated measurement results need not coincide, since $`J_3^2`$ has to be inferred from $`U`$ (or equivalently, comeasured with $`J_1^2`$ and $`J_2^2`$), while $`\overline{J}_3^2`$ has to be be inferred from $`\overline{U}`$ (or equivalently, comeasured with $`\overline{J}_1^2`$ and $`\overline{J}_2^2`$). This would then make it necessary to add to each quantum number also—in Bell’s terms—the complete disposition of the measurement apparatus, which can be represented by the associated maximal operator.

We may quantify “strong” contextuality by noticing that the $`J_i^2`$’s are dichotomic observables with eigenvalues $`0`$ and $`1`$. Therefore, in analogy to EPR-type experiments, it is possible to define a correlation function

$$C(\varphi )=\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{N}\underset{j=i}{\overset{N}{}}r_j(J_3^2)r_j(\overline{J}_3^2),$$
(40)   
where $`N`$ is the number of experiments, the index $`j`$ denotes the $`j`$’th experiment; and $`r(1)=+1`$ and $`r(0)=1`$. $`\varphi `$ is the relative angle between the $`x`$\- and $`\overline{x}`$-axes. If both axes coincide, then $`C(0)=1`$.

The proposed experiment tests “strong” contextuality in the following way. If $`C(\varphi )=1`$ for $`0<\varphi <\pi /2`$, then the system behaves noncontextually. This can be verified by considering formula (40): in the noncontextual case, $`r_j(J_3^2)`$ and $`r_j(\overline{J}_3^2)`$ are always the same ($`+1,+1`$ or $`1,1`$), hence their product always yields $`1`$. Contextuality manifests itself as $`C(\varphi )<1`$ for some value of $`\varphi `$. In this case, $`r_j(J_3^2)`$ and $`r_j(\overline{J}_3^2)`$ differ sometimes ($`+1,1`$ or $`1,+1`$), resulting in a negative product which reduces the overall sum in (40).

In view of the highly counterintuitive consequences discussed for the contextual case, let us consider noncontextuality assumption (II): $`J_3^2`$ and $`\overline{J}_3^2`$ are identical operators which therefore always yield identical observations, independent of the way they have been derived. As innocent and evident this statement may appear, it clashes with a theorem derived by Kamber , Zierler and Schlessinger  and Kochen and Specker . (For recent reviews, see , among others.) For then we could consider instead of a two-particle EPR-experiment a, say, 17-entangled particle experiment characterized by a similar state as in (39) and make measurements of $`U`$ (and thus of $`J_1^2,J_2^3`$ and $`J_3^2`$) along the 17 direction vectors $`(0,0,1)`$, $`(0,1,0)`$ and all coordinate permutations from $`(0,1,\sqrt{2})`$, $`(1,\pm 1,\sqrt{2})`$. This system has been suggested by Peres , but the original Kochen-Specker configuration or any other proper system of vectors would do just as well (for a review, see, e.g., ). In this case, the assumption of noncontextuality results in a complete contradiction with the noncontextuality assumption (II): after measuring all 17 particles and checking the appropriate observables it turns out that the outcome of measurements of at least two observables which correspond to identical operators but are measured alongside different coobservables (blocks) are different.

There is yet another, more subtle alternative which will be called “haunted” contextuality assumption (III):  contextuality never manifests itself in its “strong” form (I) but only through counterfactual reasoning. Insofar states of the form (39) are explicitly constructed to yield identical results on measurements of $`J_3^2`$, these measurement outcomes are independent of the way they have been inferred; and in particular what observables have been measured alongside. This does not contradict the Kochen-Specker theorem, since obviously states obeying such perfect correlations can be constructed only in one direction, wheres the Kochen-Specker theorem necessarily requires directions associated with noncomeasurable, complementary observables. Thus the test of “strong” contextuality will fail; i.e., $`C(\varphi )`$ will always be unity. But this does not exclude—and indeed makes necessary—arguments involving counterfactuality, such as the Kochen-Specker theorem or the GHZ-theorem which, although of doubtless importance conceptually, bear a non-operational flavor in the sense of direct physical testability.