Characterization of the probabilistic models that can be embedded in quantum theory

TL;DR

This paper characterizes which probabilistic models can be embedded into finite-dimensional quantum theory, revealing that only models related to Euclidean Jordan algebras, including classical and quantum systems, can be embedded, with implications for experimental tests and contextuality.

Contribution

It provides a complete classification of probabilistic models embeddable in quantum theory, linking them to Euclidean Jordan algebras and clarifying their physical and experimental significance.

Findings

Embeddable models are exactly Euclidean Jordan algebras.

Classical and quantum models with superselection rules can arise from decoherence.

Non-classical models must be inherently contextual.

Abstract

Quantum bits can be isolated to perform useful information-theoretic tasks, even though physical systems are fundamentally described by very high-dimensional operator algebras. This is because qubits can be consistently embedded into higher-dimensional Hilbert spaces. A similar embedding of classical probability distributions into quantum theory enables the emergence of classical physics via decoherence. Here, we ask which other probabilistic models can similarly be embedded into finite-dimensional quantum theory. We show that the embeddable models are exactly those that correspond to the Euclidean special Jordan algebras: quantum theory over the reals, the complex numbers, or the quaternions, and "spin factors" (qubits with more than three degrees of freedom), and direct sums thereof. Among those, only classical and standard quantum theory with superselection rules can arise from a physical decoherence map. Our results have significant consequences for some experimental tests of quantum theory, by clarifying how they could (or could not) falsify it. Furthermore, they imply that all unrestricted non-classical models must be contextual.