Dagomir Kaszlikowski
Centre for Quantum Technologies

Pawel Kurzynski
Centre for Quantum Technologies; Adam Mickiewicz University



Project Title

Operational and information theoretic meaning of contextuality

Project Summary

Quantum theory depicts a universe where physical properties of matter do not exist independently of an observer and outcomes of observation depend on how the observation was performed. This defies our everyday experience. I do not have to convince anybody that the colour of my car is red even if I do not look at it and that it does not depend on whether I look at it alone or together with anybody else. This feature of quantum theory is called quantum contextuality (QC) and it can be viewed as the trait making quantum mechanics so much different than classical physics. Can QC be harnessed to our advantage? Scientists have already shown that the answer is yes in some very special cases. Can we do more than those special cases? What would have happened if the universe exhibited something stronger than QC. Would this allow us to travel backward in time or perform calculations faster than the most powerful classical computers? Can a better understanding of QC help us understand why strange quantum phenomena such as quantum teleportation or tunneling are not observed in every day life? These are some of the problems we plan to address in our project.



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