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arXiv:2508.10979 · Physical review. D/Physical review. D.

Addressing local realism through Bell tests at colliders

Matthew Low

Published Nov 12, 2025• 12 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

One of the most notable aspects of quantum systems is that their components can exhibit correlations much stronger than those allowed by classical physics. Two examples of quantum correlations are quantum entanglement and Bell nonlocality, but generally there is a hierarchy of many types of quantum correlations. Among these correlations, Bell nonlocality holds a special place because it plays a dual role in distinguishing theories where local realism is a valid description. A Bell test, which is a test of local realism, typically needs to be augmented with assumptions to address possible loopholes in the experimental setup. In this work, we study Bell tests in experiments in which the detector reports the correct outcome with a specified probability. This mirrors the situation at high-energy colliders, where particle spins are not measured directly but inferred from the angular distributions of their decay products. We show that, in this setup, a test of local realism is not possible. Quantum correlations, however, are still present, measurable, and informative in high-energy colliders. These correlations are the building blocks of the interesting, developing quantum information science program at high-energy colliders. The measurements of entanglement by the ATLAS and CMS experiments are the first steps in this initiative.

DOI
10.1103/15c3-mg5l

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One of the most notable aspects of quantum systems is that their components can exhibit correlations much stronger than those allowed by classical physics. Two examples of quantum correlations are quantum entanglement and Bell nonlocality, but generally there is a hierarchy of many types of quantum correlations. Among these correlations, Bell nonlocality holds a special place because it plays a dual role in distinguishing theories where local realism is a valid description. A Bell test, which is a test of local realism, typically needs to be augmented with assumptions to address possible loopholes in the experimental setup. In this work, we study Bell tests in experiments in which the detector reports the correct outcome with a specified probability. This mirrors the situation at high-energy colliders, where particle spins are not measured directly but inferred from the angular distributions of their decay products. We show that, in this setup, a test of local realism is not possible. Quantum correlations, however, are still present, measurable, and informative in high-energy colliders. These correlations are the building blocks of the interesting, developing quantum information science program at high-energy colliders. The measurements of entanglement by the ATLAS and CMS experiments are the first steps in this initiative.
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It has been argued more than 30 years ago that it is not possible to test locality at colliders, due to the inability to directly measure non-commutating observables such as spin components in current collider experiments. Recently, there has been a lot of phenomenological and experimental activity around testing locality via Bell-type experiments or entanglement versus non-entanglement in a collider environment. These results seem to evade the earlier no-go theorem by indirectly measuring spin correlations via their relation to angular correlations between momenta. We perform a careful study of the feasibility of such an approach. We scrutinize the relationship between spin and angular correlations in both quantum mechanics and local hidden variable theories. Our conclusion is that it is currently not possible to perform a logically coherent set of experimental measurements at colliders that would allow one to test locality or entanglement versus non-entanglement. This reaffirms the earlier no-go theorem. We stress that the no-go theorem does not apply to measurements of observables inspired from entanglement and Quantum Information Theory to test the Standard Model of particle physics.
Test of local realism via entangled ΛΛˉ\Lambda \bar{\Lambda }ΛΛˉ system
Abstract The non-locality of quantum correlations is a fundamental feature of quantum theory. The Bell inequality serves as a benchmark for distinguishing between predictions made by quantum theory and local hidden variable theory (LHVT). Recent advancements in photon-entanglement experiments have addressed potential loopholes and have observed significant violations of variants of Bell inequality. However, these violations do not completely disprove LHVT. To further rule out LHVT, experiments involving massive-entangled particles are necessary, in addition to those conducted with massless photons, which interact electromagnetically. In this study, we utilize (10.087±0.044)×109 J/ψ events collected with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII collider. We present the non-local correlation test of spin entanglement using a massive ΛΛbar bipartite system, which is formed and decays through strong and weak interactions, respectively. Through measurements of the angular distribution of p pbar in J/ψ→ γηc and subsequent ηc→Λ(pπ-)Λbar(pbar π+) cascade decays, a significant violation of LHVT predictions is observed in a loophole-free test of a variant of the Bell inequality, which is given by the Clauser-Horne inequality. The exclusion of LHVT is determined to be significant at a level of 5.2σ.
"In 1935, Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen questioned whether quantum mechanics can be complete, as it seemingly does not adhere to a natural view of reality: local realism, which is the notion that an event can only be influenced by events in the past lightcone, and can only influence events in the future lightcone. This question sparked a philosophical debate that lasted for three decades, until John Bell demonstrated that not only are quantum mechanics and local realism philosophically incompatible, but they predict different statistical results for an appropriate set of measurements on entangled particles, which changed the debate to a scientific discussion. Since then, Bell inequality violations have occurred in a plethora of systems, hinting that local realism is indeed wrong. However, every experiment had imperfections that complicated the interpretation --- the experiments had so-called ""loopholes"" which allowed local realism to persist. In this manuscript, we present our work in using optimized sources of entangled photons to perform the long-sought loophole-free Bell test. This landmark experiment invalidates local realism to the best that science will allow. Beyond answering questions on reality, these Bell tests have a important application in generating provably-secure private random numbers, which then can be used as a seed for cryptographic applications. Not only do we demonstrate that nonlocality must exist, but we begin an experimental exploration in an attempt to understand and quantify this nonlocality. We do so by considering all theories that obey no-signaling (or relativistic causality). In our experiments, we observe the counter-intuitive feature of measuring more nonlocality with less entangled states. We also place a bound on the predictive power of any theory that obeys relativistic causality. And finally, we are able to measure quantum correlations only attainable through complex qubits. This work merely begins to probe the quantum boundary, beginning a journey that may someday find evidence of a beyond-quantum theory."
Abstract Bell inequalities are consequences of local realism while violated by quantum mechanics. In particle physics, entangled high energy particles can be produced from a common source, and the decay of each particle plays the role of measurement. However, in a hidden variable theory, the decay could be determined by hidden variables. This loophole killed such approaches to Bell test in particle physics. It is a special form of measurement-setting or free-will loophole, which also exists in other systems. Using entangled baryons, we present new inequalities of local realism with the explicit assumption of the dependence of the decays on hidden variables, as well as the consideration of the statistical mixture of polarizations and the separation of local hidden variables for objects with spacelike distances. These violations closes the measurement-setting loophole once and for all. We propose to use the processes ηc→ΛΛˉ\eta _c\rightarrow \varLambda {\bar{\varLambda }}ηc​→ΛΛˉ ηc→ΛΛ¯ and χc0→ΛΛˉ\chi _{c0} \rightarrow \varLambda {\bar{\varLambda }}χc0​→ΛΛˉ χc0→ΛΛ¯ to test our inequalities, and show that their violations are likely to be observed with the data already collected in BESIII.
Explaining observations in terms of cause-and-effect (causal) relations is central to empirical science. However, in his seminal 1964 work [1], John Bell showed that the correlations between entangled quantum systems cannot be explained in terms of, possibly hidden, cause and effect relations. After four decades of experimental effort, Bell's prediction has recently been confirmed in an unambiguous way by a series of loophole-free Bell-test experiments [2-4]. These experiments, however, cannot reveal where exactly quantum mechanics breaks with our classical notion of cause and effect. Specifically, Bell's theorem is based on the central assumptions of realism and local causality. Realism posits that physical systems have real, objective properties, independent of whether we observe them or not, and local causality assumes that causal influences cannot propagate faster than the speed of light.