General Probabilistic Theories with a Gleason-type Theorem

TL;DR

This paper characterizes a broad class of general probabilistic theories that admit Gleason-type theorems, revealing insights into the structure of quantum and related theories through probabilistic and measurement assumptions.

Contribution

It identifies conditions under which general probabilistic theories support Gleason-type theorems, including theories satisfying the no-restriction hypothesis and those approximating such theories via post-selection.

Findings

The class includes theories satisfying the no-restriction hypothesis.

Theories can simulate unrestricted theories through post-selection.

The no-restriction hypothesis on effects differs from the dual version on states.

Abstract

Gleason-type theorems for quantum theory allow one to recover the quantum state space by assuming that (i) states consistently assign probabilities to measurement outcomes and that (ii) there is a unique state for every such assignment. We identify the class of general probabilistic theories which also admit Gleason-type theorems. It contains theories satisfying the no-restriction hypothesis as well as others which can simulate such an unrestricted theory arbitrarily well when allowing for post-selection on measurement outcomes. Our result also implies that the standard no-restriction hypothesis applied to effects is not equivalent to the dual no-restriction hypothesis applied to states which is found to be less restrictive.