A simplified basis for Bell–Kochen–Specker theorems

James D. Malley and Arthur Fine

We show that a reduced form of the structural requirements for deterministic hidden variables used in Bell–Kochen–Specker theorems is already sufficient for the no-go results. Those requirements are captured by the following principle: an observable takes a spectral value x if and only if the spectral projector associated with x takes the value 1. We show that the “only if” part of this condition suffices. The proof identifies an important structural feature behind the no-go results; namely, if at least one projector is assigned the value 1 in any resolution of the identity, then at most one is.

Published in Physics Letters A Volume 378, Issue 35, 11 July 2014, Pages 2611–2613

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