  We present a new characterization of quantum theory in terms of simple
physical principles that is different from previous ones in two important
respects: first, it only refers to properties of single systems without any
assumptions on the composition of many systems; and second, it is closer to
experiment by having absence of higher-order interference as a postulate, which
is currently the subject of experimental investigation. We give three
postulates -- no higher-order interference, classical decomposability of
states, and strong symmetry -- and prove that the only non-classical
operational probabilistic theories satisfying them are real, complex, and
quaternionic quantum theory, together with 3-level octonionic quantum theory
and ball state spaces of arbitrary dimension. Then we show that adding
observability of energy as a fourth postulate yields complex quantum theory as
the unique solution, relating the emergence of the complex numbers to the
possibility of Hamiltonian dynamics. We also show that there may be interesting
non-quantum theories satisfying only the first two of our postulates, which
would allow for higher-order interference in experiments while still respecting
the contextuality analogue of the local orthogonality principle.
