Empirically Equivalent Distributions in Ontological Models of Quantum Mechanics

Abstract

We consider ontological models of a quantum system, assuming that not all probability distributions over the space $\Lambda$ of ontic states are preparable, only those belonging to a certain set C. We assume further that every POVM with a finite value space can be measured and that for every density matrix there exists a distribution in C whose outcome statistics is given by the density matrix. We show that this mapping from C to the set of density matrices must be many-to-one, that is, that there must be empirically indistinguishable distributions in C. This shows that there must be limitations to knowledge in the sense of facts in nature that cannot be discovered empirically.