• Accepted Paper

Experimental investigation of nonclassicality in the simplest scenario via the degrees of freedom of classical light

J. M. M. Gama, G. T. C. Cruz, Massy Khoshbin, Lorenzo Catani, J. A. O. Huguenin, and W. F. Balthazar

Phys. Rev. A - Accepted 11 September, 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.

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