Contextuality from the vacuum

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lima, Caroline, Preciado-Rivas, María Rosa, Srivastava, Sanchit
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Lima, Caroline
Preciado-Rivas, María Rosa
Srivastava, Sanchit
author_facet Lima, Caroline
Preciado-Rivas, María Rosa
Srivastava, Sanchit
contents Contextuality, a key resource for quantum advantage, describes systems in which the outcome of a measurement is not independent of other compatible measurements, in contrast to classical hidden-variable descriptions. We investigate the harvesting of contextuality from the vacuum of a quantum field using Unruh-DeWitt detectors. We show that localized interactions with the field can endow initially non-contextual detectors with contextuality with respect to Heisenberg-Weyl measurements, as quantified by contextual fraction. The harvested contextuality correlates with the emergence of Wigner function negativity, in agreement with known equivalences between these notions. Our results show that contextuality is a resource that can be extracted directly from the quantum vacuum and establish contextuality harvesting as a fundamental phenomenon in relativistic quantum information.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_15001
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Contextuality from the vacuum
Lima, Caroline
Preciado-Rivas, María Rosa
Srivastava, Sanchit
Quantum Physics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
Contextuality, a key resource for quantum advantage, describes systems in which the outcome of a measurement is not independent of other compatible measurements, in contrast to classical hidden-variable descriptions. We investigate the harvesting of contextuality from the vacuum of a quantum field using Unruh-DeWitt detectors. We show that localized interactions with the field can endow initially non-contextual detectors with contextuality with respect to Heisenberg-Weyl measurements, as quantified by contextual fraction. The harvested contextuality correlates with the emergence of Wigner function negativity, in agreement with known equivalences between these notions. Our results show that contextuality is a resource that can be extracted directly from the quantum vacuum and establish contextuality harvesting as a fundamental phenomenon in relativistic quantum information.
title Contextuality from the vacuum
topic Quantum Physics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.15001