Two concepts of noncontextuality in quantum mechanics

Szabó, Gábor (2022) Two concepts of noncontextuality in quantum mechanics. STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE PART A, 93. pp. 21-29. ISSN 0039-3681

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Abstract

There are two different and logically independent concepts of noncontextuality in quantum mechanics. First, an ontological (hidden variable) model for quantum mechanics is called noncontextual if every ontic (hidden) state determines the probability of the outcomes of every measurement independently of what other measurements are simultaneously performed. Second, an ontological model is noncontextual if any two measurements which are represented by the same self-adjoint operator or, equivalently, which have the same probability distribution of outcomes in every quantum state also have the same probability distribution of outcomes in every ontic state. I will call the first concept simultaneous noncontextuality, the second measurement noncontextuality. In the paper I will overview and critically analyze some of the most significant accounts of contextuality in the literature and subsume them under these two categories.

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