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An Operational Interpretation of Negative Probabilities and No-Signalling Models

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Horizons of the Mind. A Tribute to Prakash Panangaden

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 8464))

Abstract

Negative probabilities have long been discussed in connection with the foundations of quantum mechanics. We have recently shown that, if signed measures are allowed on the hidden variables, the class of probability models which can be captured by local hidden-variable models are exactly the no-signalling models. However, the question remains of how negative probabilities are to be interpreted. In this paper, we present an operational interpretation of negative probabilities as arising from standard probabilities on signed events. This leads, by virtue of our previous result, to a systematic scheme for simulating arbitrary no-signalling models.

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Abramsky, S., Brandenburger, A. (2014). An Operational Interpretation of Negative Probabilities and No-Signalling Models. In: van Breugel, F., Kashefi, E., Palamidessi, C., Rutten, J. (eds) Horizons of the Mind. A Tribute to Prakash Panangaden. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8464. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06880-0_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06880-0_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-06879-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-06880-0

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