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arXiv:1601.03187

Is Nonlocality of the Quantum Theory Definitively Confirmed by the Experiments ?

Mario Iannuzzi

Published Jan 13, 2016• 0 citations
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Abstract

In a recent paper published last october 2015 by B.Hensen et al. [1] and in two companion papers published last december 2015 by B.Hensen et al. [2] and by L. Shalm et al. [3], the authors describe beautiful and complex experiments aimed at testing the theorem of J. Bell (1965) [4] with measurements free of the detection-loophole and the locality loophole that had never been closed unquestionably in a single experiment. According to their authors, each experiment, closing both loopholes, gives conclusive evidence in favor of nonlocality. Here I will argue that this claim may be questionable, and that such an evidence should be obtained by a different kind of experiments.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1601.03187

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In a recent paper published last october 2015 by B.Hensen et al. [1] and in two companion papers published last december 2015 by B.Hensen et al. [2] and by L. Shalm et al. [3], the authors describe beautiful and complex experiments aimed at testing the theorem of J. Bell (1965) [4] with measurements free of the detection-loophole and the locality loophole that had never been closed unquestionably in a single experiment. According to their authors, each experiment, closing both loopholes, gives conclusive evidence in favor of nonlocality. Here I will argue that this claim may be questionable, and that such an evidence should be obtained by a different kind of experiments.
Bell theorems show how to experimentally falsify local realism. Conclusive falsification is highly desirable as it would provide support for the most profoundly counterintuitive feature of quantum theory—nonlocality. Despite the preponderance of evidence for quantum mechanics, practical limits on detector efficiency and the difficulty of coordinating space-like separated measurements have provided loopholes for a classical worldview; these loopholes have never been simultaneously closed. A number of new experiments have recently been proposed to close both loopholes at once. We show these novel designs fail in the most basic way, by not ruling out local hidden variable models, and we provide an explicit classical model to demonstrate this. These experiments share a common flaw, which reveals a basic misunderstanding of how nonlocality proofs work. Given the time and resources now being devoted to such experiments, theoretical clarity is essential. Our explanation is presented in terms of simple logic and should serve to correct misconceptions and avoid future mistakes.
Recent experiments have reached detection efficiencies sufficient to close the detection loophole with photons. Both experiments ran multiple successive trials in fixed measurement configurations, rather than randomly re-setting the measurement configurations before each measurement trial. This opens a new potential loophole for a local hidden variable theory. The loophole invalidates one proposed method of statistical analysis of the experimental results, as demonstrated in this note. Therefore a different analysis will be necessary to definitively assert that these experiments are subject only to the locality loophole.
We analyze foundational consequences of recently reported loophole free tests of violation of Bell's inequality. We consider two interpretations of these remarkable experiments. The conventional one is “Einstein was wrong and Bohr was right, there is spooky action at a distance, quantum realism is incompatible with locality.” However, in line with discussions in literature during last decade, we show that it is still possible to treat quantum mechanics without appealing to nonlocality or denying realism. We hope that this note will call the attention of experts in quantum foundations and convince them that the case is not closed, so that they should come with their own comments on the status of the final Bell test.
Hance and Hossenfelder recently claim that the extensive experimental confirmations of Bell's Theorem do not in fact demonstrate that nature is nonlocal, but merely that nature can be local only if the distant detector settings in a Bell-EPR setup are not statistically independent. They suggest that such interdependence could take a local-deterministic form. There is no question that in general quantum mechanics not only allows but demands that the distant detectors be entangled and thus correlated, even though it is possible to do experiments in which such correlations can be ignored. The real question is whether entanglement itself could have a deterministic explanation. We review why any such attempted deterministic underpinning for quantum statistics would run into immediate conflict with quantum indeterminacy and the noncommutativity upon which the latter is based. Some cosmological implications are briefly explored.
In a recent Nature article Hensen et al. reported that they have accomplished a loophole-free test of Bell's theorem. The authors speculated that further improvements in their experimental design could settle an 80 year debate in favor of quantum theory's stance that entanglement is action at a We direct attention to a spatial aspect of locality, not considered by Bell's Theorem or by any of its experimental tests. We refer to the possibility that two distanced particles could remain spatially disconnected, even when distanced enough to ensure that information between them was transmitted faster than the velocity of light. We show that any local-deterministic relativity theory which violates Lorentz's contraction for distancing bodies can maintain spatial locality at any distance. We conclude that until the loophole of spatial locality is closed by future experiments, the news about the death of locality will remain greatly exaggerated.
I have been arguing that quantum nonlocality, deeply entrenched in the present formalism of quantum mechanics and widely believed as a reality by physicists, is in fact absent. Spooky nonlocal state reduction is the most, and perhaps the only irrational feature of present day physics. There are experimental results that reject nonlocal state reduction at a distance. Also, there are arguments that show that signal locality itself can be violated if there is true nonlocal collapse of the wavefunction. The Bell's inequalities, the violation of which polarized physicists in favour of nonlocality, arise not due to nonlocality, but due to ignoring prior information on correlations encoded in the phase of local probability amplitudes. Here I discuss an experiment involving particles entangled in energy and time variables that shows that there is no nonlocal state reduction during measurements on entangled particles. Quantum mechanics is inconsistent if it includes the concept of wavefunction collapse as a physical process for entangled multi-particle systems.