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Harvesting contextuality from the vacuum

Philip A. LeMaitre*

  • *Contact author: Philip.Lemaitre@uibk.ac.at
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 045001 – Published 2 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/9ff3-4m5g

Abstract

Quantum contextuality is the notion that certain measurement scenarios do not admit a global description of their statistics and has been implicated as the source of quantum advantage in a number of quantum information protocols. It has been shown that contextuality generalizes the concepts of nonlocal entanglement and magic and is an equivalent notion of nonclassicality to Wigner negativity. In this paper, the protocol of contextuality harvesting is introduced, and it is shown that Unruh-DeWitt models are capable of harvesting quantum contextuality from the vacuum of a massless scalar quantum field. In particular, it is shown that gapless systems can be made to harvest contextuality given a suitable choice of measurements. The harvested contextuality is also seen to behave similarly to harvested magic and can be larger in magnitude for specific parameter regimes. An Unruh-DeWitt qubit-qutrit system is also investigated, where it is shown that certain tradeoffs exist between the harvested contextuality of the qutrit and the harvested entanglement between the systems and that there are regimes where the two resources can both be present. Some of the tools of contextuality, namely the contextual fraction, are also imported and used as general measures for any form of harvested contextuality, including nonlocal entanglement and magic. Additionally, new criteria for genuine harvesting are put forward that also apply to individual systems, revealing new permissible harvesting parameter regimes.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 045001– Published 2 February, 2026
  • Received 18 October 2025
  • Accepted 8 January 2026
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