Questioning the absoluteness of free choices when internalized in Wigner's friend scenarios

Abstract:Wigner's thought experiment illustrates quantum theory's measurement problem by considering an observer who measures a quantum system inside a sealed lab, modeled unitarily by an outsider. Recent extensions of this thought experiment, referred to as extended Wigner's friend arguments, question how different observers can reason consistently about each other in quantum setups, and challenge the absoluteness of the outcome value obtained by the friend under a notion of locality. In this work, we present an argument against the absoluteness of free choices under the same notion of locality, using an extended Wigner's friend scenario based on the Pusey--Barrett--Rudolph theorem. Similar arguments based on other contextuality or nonlocality models are possible.

Close to published version now; updated title according to published version in Phys. Rev. A. 7+2 pages, all comments welcome!

arXiv:2605.14538 [quant-ph]

(or arXiv:2605.14538v2 [quant-ph] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.14538 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

Phys. Rev. A 114, 032431 (2026)

https://doi.org/10.1103/hf5j-t83v Focus to learn more DOI(s) linking to related resources

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