Experimental Test of High-Dimensional Quantum Contextuality Based on Contextuality Concentration

Contextuality is a distinctive feature of quantum theory and a fundamental resource for quantum computation. However, existing examples of contextuality in high-dimensional systems lack the necessary robustness required in experiments. Here, we address this problem by identifying a family of noncontextuality inequalities whose maximum quantum violation grows with the dimension of the system. At first glance, this contextuality is the single-system version of multipartite Bell nonlocality taken to an extreme form. What is interesting is that the single-system version achieves the same degree of contextuality but uses a Hilbert space of lower dimension. That is, contextuality concentrates as the degree of contextuality per dimension increases. We show the practicality of this result by presenting an experimental test of contextuality in a seven-dimensional system. By simulating sequences of quantum ideal measurements with destructive measurements and repreparation in an all-optical setup, we report a violation of 68.7 standard deviations of the simplest case of the noncontextuality inequalities identified. Our results advance the investigation of high-dimensional contextuality, its connection to the Clifford algebra, and its role in quantum computation.

Automated summary

We address the lack of robustness in existing examples of contextuality in high-dimensional systems by identifying a family of noncontextuality inequalities whose maximum quantum violation grows with the dimension of the system. We show the practicality of this result by presenting an experimental test of contextuality in a seven-dimensional system, where we report a violation of 68.7 standard deviations. Our findings advance the investigation of high-dimensional contextuality and its role in quantum computation.