English

Classical causal models cannot faithfully explain Bell nonlocality or Kochen-Specker contextuality in arbitrary scenarios

Quantum Physics 2021-08-11 v4

Abstract

In a recent work, it was shown by one of us (EGC) that Bell-Kochen-Specker inequality violations in phenomena satisfying the no-disturbance condition (a generalisation of the no-signalling condition) cannot in general be explained with a faithful classical causal model -- that is, a classical causal model that satisfies the assumption of no fine-tuning. The proof of that claim however was restricted to Bell scenarios involving 2 parties or Kochen-Specker-contextuality scenarios involving 2 measurements per context. Here we show that the result holds in the general case of arbitrary numbers of parties or measurements per context; it is not an artefact of the simplest scenarios. This result unifies, in full generality, Bell nonlocality and Kochen-Specker contextuality as violations of a fundamental principle of classical causality. We identify, however, an implicit assumption in the former proof, making it explicit here: that certain operational symmetries of the phenomenon are reflected in the model, rather than requiring fine-tuned choices of model parameters. This clarifies a subtle but important distinction between Bell nonlocality and Kochen-Specker contextuality.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1909.05434,
  title  = {Classical causal models cannot faithfully explain Bell nonlocality or Kochen-Specker contextuality in arbitrary scenarios},
  author = {J. C. Pearl and E. G. Cavalcanti},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1909.05434},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

13 pages, 10 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T11:13:01.326Z