The Quad-$C_5$ Graph: Maximum Contextuality Gap on Eight Vertices

Abstract:Quantum measurements can exhibit contextuality: their outcomes cannot always be explained by assigning pre-existing values that are independent of which compatible measurements are performed together. The Klyachko-Can-Binicioğlu-Shumovsky (KCBS) inequality provides the canonical minimal test of this effect for a single three-level quantum system, or qutrit, using five measurement events arranged as a pentagon. Here we ask whether a larger but still compact set of measurement events can produce a stronger separation between quantum predictions and the corresponding noncontextual limit. We perform an exhaustive search over all 11,117 connected non-isomorphic graphs with eight vertices, where each vertex represents a measurement event and edges connect pairs of events that cannot occur together. We identify a sparse ten-edge graph, which we call Quad-$C_5$, as the unique maximizer of this separation at the reported numerical precision. The graph can be understood as four overlapping KCBS pentagons, with every edge shared by two pentagons. Quad-$C_5$ already demonstrates contextuality in a qutrit, for which we obtain an exact analytical result and find the same violation above the noncontextual bound as in the original KCBS test. The larger quantum-noncontextual separation allowed by the graph, however, becomes accessible in a four-level quantum system, where numerical optimization reaches the full graph-theoretic quantum bound and yields a larger contextuality gap than the standard eight-vertex Wagner-graph benchmark while requiring fewer pairwise constraints. Quad-$C_5$ therefore provides a compact connection between minimal qutrit contextuality and stronger contextuality tests available in higher-dimensional quantum systems.

arXiv:2605.12828 [quant-ph]

(or arXiv:2605.12828v3 [quant-ph] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.12828 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

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