On the Cohomology of Contextuality

Recent work by Abramsky and Brandenburger used sheaf theory to give a mathematical formulation of non-locality and contextuality. By adopting this viewpoint, it has been possible to define cohomological obstructions to the existence of global sections. In the present work, we illustrate new insights into different aspects of this theory. We shed light on the power of detection of the cohomological obstruction by showing that it is not a complete invariant for strong contextuality even under symmetry and connectedness restrictions on the measurement cover, disproving a previous conjecture. We generalise obstructions to higher cohomology groups and show that they give rise to a refinement of the notion of cohomological contextuality: different "levels" of contextuality are organised in a hierarchy of logical implications. Finally, we present an alternative description of the first cohomology group in terms of torsors, resulting in a new interpretation of the cohomological obstructions.Comment: In Proceedings QPL 2016, arXiv:1701.0024

On Measures and Measurements: a Fibre Bundle approach to Contextuality

Contextuality is the failure of "local" probabilistic models to become global ones. In this paper we introduce the notions of \emph{measurable fibre bundles}, \emph{probability fibre bundles}, and \emph{sample fibre bundle} which capture and make precise the former statement. The central notions of contextuality are discussed under this formalism, examples worked out, and some new aspects pointed out.Comment: 14 pages; no figures; Purdue-Winer Memorial Lectures 2018; submitted to Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A. Comments are very welcom

Combining contextuality and causality: a game semantics approach

We develop an approach to combining contextuality with causality, which is general enough to cover causal background structure, adaptive measurement-based quantum computation, and causal networks. The key idea is to view contextuality as arising from a game played between Experimenter and Nature, allowing for causal dependencies in the actions of both the Experimenter (choice of measurements) and Nature (choice of outcomes).Comment: 13 page

A Sheaf Model of Contradictions and Disagreements. Preliminary Report and Discussion

We introduce a new formal model -- based on the mathematical construct of sheaves -- for representing contradictory information in textual sources. This model has the advantage of letting us (a) identify the causes of the inconsistency; (b) measure how strong it is; (c) and do something about it, e.g. suggest ways to reconcile inconsistent advice. This model naturally represents the distinction between contradictions and disagreements. It is based on the idea of representing natural language sentences as formulas with parameters sitting on lattices, creating partial orders based on predicates shared by theories, and building sheaves on these partial orders with products of lattices as stalks. Degrees of disagreement are measured by the existence of global and local sections. Limitations of the sheaf approach and connections to recent work in natural language processing, as well as the topics of contextuality in physics, data fusion, topological data analysis and epistemology are also discussed.Comment: This paper was presented at ISAIM 2018, International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics. Fort Lauderdale, FL. January 3 5, 2018. Minor typographical errors have been correcte

Topos quantum theory with short posets

Topos quantum mechanics, developed by Isham et. al., creates a topos of presheaves over the poset V(N) of abelian von Neumann subalgebras of the von Neumann algebra N of bounded operators associated to a physical system, and established several results, including: (a) a connection between the Kochen-Specker theorem and the non-existence of a global section of the spectral presheaf; (b) a version of the spectral theorem for self-adjoint operators; (c) a connection between states of N and measures on the spectral presheaf; and (d) a model of dynamics in terms of V(N). We consider a modification to this approach using not the whole of the poset V(N), but only its elements of height at most two. This produces a different topos with different internal logic. However, the core results (a)--(d) established using the full poset V(N) are also established for the topos over the smaller poset, and some aspects simplify considerably. Additionally, this smaller poset has appealing aspects reminiscent of projective geometry.Comment: 14 page

Continuous-variable nonlocality and contextuality

Contextuality is a non-classical behaviour that can be exhibited by quantum systems. It is increasingly studied for its relationship to quantum-over-classical advantages in informatic tasks. To date, it has largely been studied in discrete variable scenarios, where observables take values in discrete and usually finite sets. Practically, on the other hand, continuous-variable scenarios offer some of the most promising candidates for implementing quantum computations and informatic protocols. Here we set out a framework for treating contextuality in continuous-variable scenarios. It is shown that the Fine--Abramsky--Brandenburger theorem extends to this setting, an important consequence of which is that nonlocality can be viewed as a special case of contextuality, as in the discrete case. The contextual fraction, a quantifiable measure of contextuality that bears a precise relationship to Bell inequality violations and quantum advantages, can also be defined in this setting. It is shown to be a non-increasing monotone with respect to classical operations that include binning to discretise data. Finally, we consider how the contextual fraction can be formulated as an infinite linear program, and calculated with increasing accuracy using semi-definite programming approximations.Comment: 27 pages including 6 pages supplemental material, 2 figure

Contextuality and the fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics

Contextuality is a key feature of quantum mechanics, as was first brought to light by Bohr and later realised more technically by Kochen and Specker. Isham and Butterfield put contextuality at the heart of their topos-based formalism and gave a reformulation of the Kochen-Specker theorem in the language of presheaves. Here, we broaden this perspective considerably (partly drawing on existing, but scattered results) and show that apart from the Kochen-Specker theorem, also Wigner's theorem, Gleason's theorem, and Bell's theorem relate fundamentally to contextuality. We provide reformulations of the theorems using the language of presheaves over contexts and give general versions valid for von Neumann algebras. This shows that a very substantial part of the structure of quantum theory is encoded by contextuality.Comment: v2: minor revisions, added definition of Bell presheaf, adjustment of Bell's theorem in contextual for

Closing Bell: Boxing black box simulations in the resource theory of contextuality

This chapter contains an exposition of the sheaf-theoretic framework for contextuality emphasising resource-theoretic aspects, as well as some original results on this topic. In particular, we consider functions that transform empirical models on a scenario S to empirical models on another scenario T, and characterise those that are induced by classical procedures between S and T corresponding to 'free' operations in the (non-adaptive) resource theory of contextuality. We construct a new 'hom' scenario built from S and T, whose empirical models induce such functions. Our characterisation then boils down to being induced by a non-contextual model. We also show that this construction on scenarios provides a closed structure on the category of measurement scenarios.Comment: Corrected a mistake in Theorem 44 and other fixes stemming from it. This supersedes the published version and should be considered the version of referenc