Geometry of contextuality from Grothendieck's coset space
Abstract
The geometry of cosets in the subgroups H of the two-generator free group G =\textless{} a, b \textgreater{} nicely fits, via Grothendieck's dessins d'enfants, the geometry of commutation for quantum observables. Dessins stabilize point-line incidence geometries that reflect the commutation of (generalized) Pauli operators [Information 5, 209 (2014); 1310.4267 and 1404.6986 (quant-ph)]. Now we find that the non-existence of a dessin for which the commutator (a, b) = a^ (--1) b^( --1) ab precisely corresponds to the commutator of quantum observables [A, B] = AB -- BA on all lines of the geometry is a signature of quantum contextuality. This occurs first at index |G : H| = 9 in Mermin's square and at index 10 in Mermin's pentagram, as expected. Commuting sets of n-qubit observables with n \textgreater{} 3 are found to be contextual as well as most generalized polygons. A geometrical contextuality measure is introduced.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1411.7704,
title = {Geometry of contextuality from Grothendieck's coset space},
author = {Michel Planat},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1411.7704},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
13 pages, Quant. Inf. Proc