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Annalen der Physik

On the Correlations between the Particles in the EPR‐Paradoxon

H.‐J. Treder

Published Jan 1, 1983• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract The Einstein‐Podolsky‐Rosen “gedanken‐experiment” does not imply non‐local interactions or an “action‐at‐a‐distance”. Contrary, the EPR proves the measurements at one particle does not have influences at canonical variables of the other particles if the quantum‐mechanical commutation relations are true. But, the EPR implices correlations between the particles which come in by “subjective knowledge”. These correlations are a priori informations about the relative motion or, complementarily, about the motion of the center of mass. The impression of an action‐at‐a‐distance is produced by the use of usual particle coordinates in the EPR‐arrangements. The discussion of the Einstein‐Podolsky‐Rosen “gedanken‐experiment” (EPR) has been going on over fifty years. EINSTEIN, PODOLSKY, and ROSEN formulated their famous paradox in 1935, and in the discussion between N. BOHR (1935, 1949) and A. EINSTEIN (1936, 1948); A. EINSTEIN (1948) made his point that the EPR implied an “action‐at‐a‐distance” for quantum‐mechanical particles (without obvious classical interactions). His argument is the starting point for the recent discussion about EPR and causality (see A. Aspect, 1981).

DOI
10.1002/andp.19834950407

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Zeitschrift für Naturforschung A•Apr 1, 1974•1 citation
Abstract The Einstein‐Podolsky‐Rosen “gedanken‐experiment” does not imply non‐local interactions or an “action‐at‐a‐distance”. Contrary, the EPR proves the measurements at one particle does not have influences at canonical variables of the other particles if the quantum‐mechanical commutation relations are true. But, the EPR implices correlations between the particles which come in by “subjective knowledge”. These correlations are a priori informations about the relative motion or, complementarily, about the motion of the center of mass. The impression of an action‐at‐a‐distance is produced by the use of usual particle coordinates in the EPR‐arrangements. The discussion of the Einstein‐Podolsky‐Rosen “gedanken‐experiment” (EPR) has been going on over fifty years. EINSTEIN, PODOLSKY, and ROSEN formulated their famous paradox in 1935, and in the discussion between N. BOHR (1935, 1949) and A. EINSTEIN (1936, 1948); A. EINSTEIN (1948) made his point that the EPR implied an “action‐at‐a‐distance” for quantum‐mechanical particles (without obvious classical interactions). His argument is the starting point for the recent discussion about EPR and causality (see A. Aspect, 1981).
The long-standing puzzle of the nonlocal Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations is resolved. The correct quantum mechanical correlations arise for the case of entangled particles when strict locality is assumed for the probability amplitudes instead of locality for probabilities. Locality of amplitudes implies that measurement on one particle does not collapse the companion particle to a definite state. Sixty five years ago, the most significant paper questioning a fundamental aspect of quantum phenomena was written by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR) [1]. They addressed the question whether the wave-function represented a complete description of reality in quantum mechanics, and argued that it didn’t. Bohr’s reply to this paper [2] was not sufficient to resolve the fundamental issues raised by EPR. Decades later, Bohm rephrased the EPR problem [3] in terms of particles correlated in their spin and this helped enormously in analyzing the problem with clarity. John Bell analyzed the EPR problem in the early sixties and established the Bell’s inequalities obeyed by
The famous EPR paradox shows that if we describe quantum particles in the usual way -- by their wave functions -- then we get the following seeming contradiction. If we entangle the states of the two particles, then move them far away from each other, and measure the state of the first particle, then the state of the second particle immediately changes -- which contradicts to special relativity, according to which such immediate-action-at-a-distance is not possible. It is known that, from the physical viewpoint, this is not a real paradox: if we measure any property of the second particle, the results will not change whether we perform the measurement on the first particle or not. What the above argument shows is that the usual wave function description of a quantum state does not always adequately describe the corresponding physics. In this paper, we propose a new, more physically adequate description of a quantum state, a description in which there is no EPR paradox: measurements performed at the first particle does not change the state of the remote second one.
Abstract Einstein's severe critique of quantum mechanics took its ultimate form in the so‐called Einstein Podolsky Rosen (EPR) paradox. The latter remained a subject of mere dispute, until a remarkable progress was initiated in 1964 by Bell who showed that quantum mechanical correlations specific for an EPR type experiment cannot be reproduced in any local hidden—variables theory. Afterwards, realistic versions of EPR experiments have been conceived and, in fact, carried out. The objective of the present paper is to give a review of this recent exciting development, both theoretical and experimental, which reveals one of the most striking features of quantum theory, the “quantum interconnectedness of distant systems”.
The subject of Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen correlations—those strong quantum correlations that seem to imply “spooky actions at a distance”—has just been given a new and beautiful twist. Daniel Greenberger, Michael Horne, and Anton Zeilinger have found a clever and powerful extension of the two-particle EPR experiment to gedanken decays that produce more than two particles [1]. In the GHZ experiment the spookiness assumes an even more vivid form than it acquired in John Bell's celebrated analysis of the EPR experiment, given over 25 years ago [2]. The argument that follows is my attempt to simplify a refinement of the GHZ argument given by the philosophers Robert Clifton, Michael Redhead, and Jeremy Butterfield [3]. Consider three spin-½ particles, named 1, 2, and 3. They have originated in a spin-conserving gedanken decay and are now gedanken flying apart along three different straight lines in the horizontal plane. (It's not essential for the gedanken trajectories to be coplanar, but it makes it easier to describe the rest of the geometry.) I specify the spin state |Ψ〉 of the three particles in a time-honored manner, giving you a complete set of commuting Hermitian spin-space operators of which |Ψ〉 is an eigenstate. Those operators are assembled out of the following pieces (measuring all spins in units of ½ ħ ): σ z i the operator for the spin of particle i along its direction of motion; σ x i the spin along the vertical direction; and σ y i , the spin along the horizontal direction orthogonal to the trajectory. (Any three orthogonal directions independently chosen for each particle would do. But we're going to be gedanken -measuring x and y components of each particle's spin, so it's nice to think of the x and y directions as orthogonal to the direction of motion, since the components can then be straightforwardly measured by passage through a conventional Stern–Gerlach magnet.) The complete set of commuting Hermitian operators consists of σ x 1 σ y 2 σ y 3 , σ y 1 σ x 2 σ y 3 , σ y 1 σ y 2 σ x 3 . Even though the x and y components of a given particle's spin anticommute—a fact of paramount importance in what follows—all three of the operators in (1) do indeed commute with one another, because the product of any two of them differs from the product in the reverse order by an even number of such anticommutations. Because they all commute, the three operators can be provided with simultaneous eigenstates.
Introduction The paradox of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen was advanced as an argument that quantum mechanics could not be a complete theory but should be supplemented by additional variables. These additional variables were to restore to the theory causality and locality. In this note that idea will be formulated mathematically and shown to be incompatible with the statistical predictions of quantum mechanics. It is the requirement of locality, or more precisely that the result of a measurement on one system be unaffected by operations on a distant system with which it has interacted in the past, that creates the essential difficulty. There have been attempts to show that even without such a separability or locality requirement no ‘hidden variable’ interpretation of quantum mechanics is possible. These attempts have been examined elsewhere and found wanting. Moreover, a hidden variable interpretation of elementary quantum theory has been explicitly constructed. That particular interpretation has indeed a grossly non-local structure. This is characteristic, according to the result to be proved here, of any such theory which reproduces exactly the quantum mechanical predictions. Formulation With the example advocated by Bohm and Aharonov, the EPR argument is the following. Consider a pair of spin one-half particles formed somehow in the singlet spin state and moving freely in opposite directions. Measurements can be made, say by Stern–Gerlach magnets, on selected components of the spins σ 1 and σ 2 .
The EPR experiment is analysed in terms of ordinary quantum mechanics and shown to be compatible with the orthodox interpretation of this theory. There is no need to refer to Bohrs resolution of the EPR paradox, nor is it necessary to assume any further unusual properties of the quantum physical reality. In particular, it is shown that the EPR experiment does not contradict the fact that incommensurable properties cannot be objectivized simultaneously in a quantum mechanical system, and that the measuring process can be understood in terms of quantum theory as an interaction of the measuring apparatus and the object system. From these results it follows that there is no reason to search for modifications of the quantum theory which might be more convenient for a realistic interpretation of the EPR experiment. Furthermore, the EPR experiment cannot be used as a motivation for introducing hidden variables into the quantum theory. Experimental investigations which try to test quantum mechanics in respect to the possibility of introducing local hidden variables can therefore not be justified by the EPR paradox.