Hidden Variables for Pauli Measurements

Abstract: The Pauli measurements (the measurements that can be performed with Clifford operators followed by measurement in the computational basis) are a fundamental object in quantum information. It is well-known that there is no assignment of outcomes to all Pauli measurements that is both complete and consistent. We define two classes of hidden variable assignments based on relaxing either condition. Partial hidden variable assignments retain the consistency condition, but forfeit completeness. Contextual hidden variable assignments retain completeness but forfeit consistency. We use techniques from spectral graph theory to characterize the incompleteness and inconsistency of the respective hidden variable assignments. As an application, we interpret our incompleteness result as a statement of contextuality and our inconsistency result as a statement of nonlocality. Our results show that we can obtain large amounts of contextuality and nonlocality using Clifford gates and measurements.