English

Noncommuting common causes revisited

Quantum Physics 2024-11-11 v1 Mathematical Physics math.MP History and Philosophy of Physics

Abstract

In this paper, we revisit the concept of noncommuting common causes; refute two objections raised against them, the triviality objection and the lack of causal explanatory force; and explore how their existence modifies the EPR argument. More specifically, we show that 1) product states screening off all quantum correlations do not compromise noncommuting common causal explanations; 2) noncommuting common causes can satisfy the law of total probability; 3) perfect correlations can have indeterministic noncommuting common causes; and, as a combination of the above claims, 4) perfect correlations can have noncommuting common causes which are both nontrivial and satisfy the law of total probability.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2411.05468,
  title  = {Noncommuting common causes revisited},
  author = {Gábor Hofer-Szabó and Szilárd Szalay},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.05468},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

34+7 pages, 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:52:51.276Z