Variable Photon Detection as an Explanation of EPR Experiments

Augusto Garuccio, F. Selleri

T. Haji-Hassan, Alan J. Duncan, Walter Perrie +2 more

John P. Losee

In 1935, Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) argued that the Copenhagen interpretation of the quantum realm is incomplete. Moreover, they maintained that it is based on an unacceptable interpretation of physical reality. David Bohm revised the EPR thought experiment by focusing on spin determination as a state variable. Consider the creation of a pair of electrons by the spontaneous decay of a neutral pion. This is a physical process whose existence has been established. The spin of the pion before decay is zero. Consequently, the sum of the spins of the electrons also must be zero, given that spin is conserved in nuclear reactions. Analysis of the two-slit experiments reveals a failure of the causality-explanation relationship. The interference effect produced when no detecting devices are present at the two slits is no longer present. It would seem that detecting the passage of individual electrons through the slits destroys the wave-like behavior of the electrons.

James H. Bigelow

I formulate the problem of closing the detection loophole as a constrained optimization problem. Numerical methods can then be used to maximize the detector efficiency subject to the constraint that there exists a local realist explanation for the quantum correlations observed in the EPR experiment in question. Any detector efficiency larger than this maximum rules out all local realist explanations, and hence closes the detection loophole.

Mladen Pavičić

Thompson, C H

Actual realisations of EPR experiments do not demonstrate non-locality. A model is presented that should enable non-specialists as well as specialists to understand how easy it is to find realistic explanations for the observations. The model also suggests new areas where realistic (``hidden-variable'') models can give valid predictions whilst quantum mechanics fails. It offers straightforward explanations for some anomalies that Aspect was unable to account for, providing perhaps the first experimental evidence that a hidden-variable theory can be superior to quantum mechanics. The apparent success of quantum mechanics in predicting results is shown to be largely due to the use of unjustifiable and biased analysis of the data. Data that has been discarded because it did not lead to a valid Bell's test may give further evidence that hidden variables exist.