On possible extensions of quantum mechanics

Abstract

It was argued [1] that there can be no extension of quantum mechanics with improved predictive power on a measurement freely chosen, independently of any event that is not in its future light cone. The assumption of measurement choice was criticized [2] to be too strong to be physically necessary and extensions of quantum mechanics were shown [3] to be possible under a more relaxed measurement assumption. Here I point out an error in the criticism and observe that the actual mistake of the no-go theorem lies in an unwarranted assumption implicitly made in the proof of [1]. Hence, quantum mechanics is guaranteed to have the maximal predictive power only in situations of complete certainty and complete uncertainty about measurement outcomes. I then show that the measurement assumption can be further relaxed without affecting the conclusion on the predictive power of quantum mechanics versus alternative theories. I further study the optimal predicative improvement over quantum mechanics of local spin measurements on a pair of entangled qubits by any alternative theory and conjecture a strict upper bound.