Search

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 implemented simultaneously or, more generally, those that are jointly measurable. This conflict is generically called quantum contextuality. In this review, an introduction to this subject and its current status is presented. Several proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem and different notions of contextuality are reviewed. How to experimentally test some of these notions is explained and connections between contextuality and nonlocality or graph theory are discussed. Finally, some applications of contextuality in quantum information processing are reviewed., Comment: 68 pages, 20 figures. Final version

We define a simple rule that allows to describe sequences of projective measurements for a broad class of generalized probabilistic models. This class embraces quantum mechanics and classical probability theory, but, for example, also the hypothetical Popescu-Rohrlich box. For quantum mechanics, the definition yields the established L\"uders's rule, which is the standard rule how to update the quantum state after a measurement. In the general case it can be seen as the least disturbing or most coherent way to perform sequential measurements. As example we show that Spekkens's toy model is an instance of our definition. We also demonstrate the possibility of strong post-quantum correlations as well as the existence of triple-slit correlations for certain non-quantum toy models., Comment: 14 pages; accepted version