Quantum contextuality of spin-1 massive particles

M. Fabbrichesi; R. Floreanini; E. Gabrielli; L. Marzola

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arXiv · 2503.14587

Quantum contextuality of spin-1 massive particles

M. Fabbrichesi·R. Floreanini·E. Gabrielli·L. Marzola

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Abstract

Contextuality is a fundamental property of quantum mechanics. Contrary to entanglement, which can only exist in composite systems, contextuality is also present for single entities. The case of a three-level system is of particular interest because--in agreement with the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem--it is the simplest in which quantum contextuality is necessarily present. We verify that the polarizations of spin-1 massive particles produced at collider experiments indeed exhibit contextuality. To this purpose we consider $W$ gauge bosons produced in top-quark decays, $J/\psi$ and $K^{*}(892)^0$ mesons created in $B$-meson decays and $\phi$ mesons resulting from $\chi^0_c$ charmonium decays, making use of the data collected and analyzed by the ATLAS, LHCb and BESIII collaborations, respectively. The polarizations of all these four particles show contextuality with a significance of more than $5\sigma$.

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M. Fabbrichesi, R. Floreanini, E. Gabrielli, L. Marzola. 2025-03-18. Quantum contextuality of spin-1 massive particles. https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.14587

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