{
  "id": "1408.0945",
  "version": "v2",
  "published": "2014-08-05T12:23:12.000Z",
  "updated": "2014-08-10T15:28:54.000Z",
  "title": "What does an experimental test of quantum contextuality prove or disprove?",
  "authors": [
    "Andreas Winter"
  ],
  "comment": "REVTEX4, 9 pages, 57 references; corrected example 7 in v2. To appear in Journal of Physics A, special issue \"50 years of Bell's theorem\"",
  "categories": [
    "quant-ph",
    "physics.hist-ph"
  ],
  "abstract": "The possibility to test experimentally the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem is investigated critically, following the demonstrations by Meyer, Kent and Clifton-Kent that the predictions of quantum mechanics are indistinguishable (up to arbitrary precision) from those of a non-contextual model, and the subsequent debate to which extent these models are actually classical or non-contextual. The present analysis starts from a careful consideration these \"finite-precision\" approximations. A stronger condition for non-contextual models, dubbed <ontological faithfulness>, is exhibited. It is shown that it allows to formulate approximately the constraints in Bell-Kochen-Specker theorems such as to render the usual proofs robust. As a consequence, one can experimentally test to finite precision ontologically faithful non-contextuality, and thus experimentally refute explanations from this smaller class. We include a discussion of the relation of ontological faithfulness to other proposals to overcome the finite precision objection.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v2",
      "updated": "2014-08-10T15:28:54.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "experimental test",
      "quantum contextuality",
      "bell-kochen-specker theorem",
      "non-contextual model",
      "finite precision ontologically faithful non-contextuality"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "journal article"
    ],
    "publication": {
      "doi": "10.1088/1751-8113/47/42/424031",
      "journal": "Journal of Physics A Mathematical General",
      "year": 2014,
      "month": "Oct",
      "volume": 47,
      "number": 42,
      "pages": 424031
    },
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "RevTeX",
      "pages": 9,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable",
      "adsabs": "2014JPhA...47P4031W"
    }
  }
}