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Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical

Steering, or maybe why Einstein did not go all the way to Bellʼs argument

Reinhard F. Werner

Published Oct 9, 2014• 20 citations
Publisher

Abstract

It is shown that a main source of conflict between Einstein and the mainstream quantum physicists was his insistence that wave functions, like classical probability distributions, do not refer to individual particles and, in particular, do not describe individual systems completely. The EPR paper was written to argue for this position. By aiming at showing that wave functions are unsuitable as local hidden variables, the authors failed to see that a slight extension could have ruled out such local hidden variables in general. As background for this analysis of the EPR argument the notion of steering is described, and a version of the Bell argument is proved which emphasizes non-local signalling aspects. Finally, some background is given concerning a well-known paper by the present author, which is celebrating 25 years this year, and in which the first non-steering models were constructed. This article is part of a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical devoted to '50 years of Bell's theorem'.

DOI
10.1088/1751-8113/47/42/424008

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It is shown that a main source of conflict between Einstein and the mainstream quantum physicists was his insistence that wave functions, like classical probability distributions, do not refer to individual particles and, in particular, do not describe individual systems completely. The EPR paper was written to argue for this position. By aiming at showing that wave functions are unsuitable as local hidden variables, the authors failed to see that a slight extension could have ruled out such local hidden variables in general. As background for this analysis of the EPR argument the notion of steering is described, and a version of the Bell argument is proved which emphasizes non-local signalling aspects. Finally, some background is given concerning a well-known paper by the present author, which is celebrating 25 years this year, and in which the first non-steering models were constructed. This article is part of a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical devoted to '50 years of Bell's theorem'.
We show how one can be led from considerations of quantum steering to Bell's theorem. We begin with Einstein's demonstration that, assuming local realism, quantum states must be in a many-to-one ("incomplete") relationship with the real physical states of the system. We then consider some simple constraints that local realism imposes on any such incomplete model of physical reality, and show they are not satisfiable. In particular, we present a very simple demonstration for the absence of a local hidden variable incomplete description of nature by steering to two ensembles, one of which contains a pair of non-orthogonal states. Historically this is not how Bell's theorem arose - there are slight and subtle differences in the arguments - but it could have been.
On the 50th anniversary of Bell's monumental 1964 paper, there is still widespread misunderstanding about exactly what Bell proved. This misunderstanding derives in turn from a failure to appreciate the earlier argument of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen. I retrace the history and logical structure of these arguments in order to clarify the proper conclusion, namely that any world that displays violations of Bell's inequality for experiments done far from one another must be non-local. Since the world we happen to live in displays such violations, actual physics is non-local. This article is part of a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical devoted to '50 years of Bell's theorem'.
In the 80 years since the seminal Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) paper, physicists and philosophers have mused about the `spooky action at a distance' aspect of quantum mechanics that so bothered Einstein. In his formal analysis of EPR-type entangled quantum states, Bell (1964) concluded that any hidden variable theory designed to reproduce the predictions of quantum mechanics must necessarily be nonlocal and allow superluminal interactions. This doesn't immediately imply that nonlocality is a characteristic feature of quantum mechanics let alone a fundamental property of nature; however, many physicists and philosophers of science do harbor this belief. Experts in the field often use the term `nonlocality' to designate particular non-classical aspects of quantum entanglement and do not confuse the term with superluminal interactions. However, many physicists seem to take the term more literally. I endeavor to disabuse the latter of this notion by emphasizing that the correlations of Bell-type entanglement are a result of ordinary quantum superposition with no need to introduce nonlocality. The conclusion of the EPR paper wasn't that quantum mechanics is nonlocal but rather that it is an incomplete description of reality. For different reasons, many physicists, including me, agree with Einstein that quantum mechanics is necessarily an incomplete description of reality.
The Bell theorem [103] can be seen in several different ways, as the EPR argument. Initially, Bell invented it as a direct logical continuation of the EPR theorem: the idea is to take the existence of the EPR elements of reality seriously, and to push it further by introducing them explicitly into the mathematics with the notation λ; one then proceeds to study all possible kinds of correlations that can be obtained from the fluctuations of one or several variables λ, making the condition of locality explicit in the mathematics (locality was already useful in the EPR theorem, but not used in equations). The reasoning develops within determinism (considered as proved by the EPR reasoning) and classical probabilities; it studies in a completely general way all kinds of correlations that can be predicted from the fluctuations of some classical common cause in the past – if one prefers, from some random choice concerning the initial state of the system. This leads to the famous inequalities. But subsequent studies have shown that the scope of the Bell theorem is not limited to determinism; for instance, the λ variables may determine the probabilities of the results of future experiments, instead of the results themselves (see Appendix B), without canceling the theorem. We postpone the discussion of the various possible generalizations to §4.2.3. For the moment, we just emphasize that the essential condition for the validity of the Bell theorem is locality: all kinds of fluctuations can be assumed, but their effect must affect physics only locally.
In this Einstein Year of Physics it seems appropriate to look at an important aspect of Einstein's work that is often down-played: his contribution to the debate on the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Contrary to physics ‘folklore’, Bohr had no defence against Einstein's 1935 attack (the EPR paper) on the claimed completeness of orthodox quantum mechanics. I suggest that Einstein's argument, as stated most clearly in 1946, could justly be called Einstein's reality – locality – completeness theorem, since it proves that one of these three must be false. Einstein's instinct was that completeness of orthodox quantum mechanics was the falsehood, but he failed in his quest to find a more complete theory that respected reality and locality. Einstein's theorem, and possibly Einstein's failure, inspired John Bell in 1964 to prove his reality – locality theorem. This strengthened Einstein's theorem (but showed the futility of his quest) by demonstrating that either reality or locality is a falsehood. This revealed the full non-locality of the quantum world for the first time.
In quantum theory, no-go theorems are important as they rule out the existence of a particular physical model under consideration. For instance, the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) theorem serves as a no-go theorem for the nonexistence of local hidden variable models by presenting a full contradiction for the multipartite GHZ states. However, the elegant GHZ argument for Bell's nonlocality does not go through for bipartite Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) state. Recent study on quantum nonlocality has shown that the more precise description of EPR's original scenario is "steering", i.e., the nonexistence of local hidden state models. Here, we present a simple GHZ-like contradiction for any bipartite pure entangled state, thus proving a no-go theorem for the nonexistence of local hidden state models in the EPR paradox. This also indicates that the very simple steering paradox presented here is indeed the closest form to the original spirit of the EPR paradox.