Experimental investigation of nonclassicality in the simplest scenario via the degrees of freedom of classical light
Phys. Rev. A 114, 043502 – Published 5 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/v5k7-xb74
Abstract
In this work, we experimentally investigate different notions of nonclassicality in the simplest scenario using four preparations and two binary-outcome measurements in two distinct experimental setups that exploit different degrees of freedom of light: polarization and first-order transverse spatial modes. In addition, noise effects are explored by using an all-optical setup that reproduces the operational effect of a depolarizing channel. Our experimental approach exploits the vectorial structure of classical light, providing a reliable and highly controllable platform for investigating fundamental features arising from the Hilbert-space structure of optical modes. The experimental results are consistent with the findings of Khoshbin et al. [Phys. Rev. A 109, 032212 (2024)]: under the assumption that the two measurements performed form a tomographically complete set, the observed statistics violate their noise-robust inequalities, indicating inconsistencies with preparation noncontextuality and bounded ontological distinctness for preparations.
