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Physical Review A

Experimental test of the violation of local realism in quantum mechanics without Bell inequalities

Giovanni Di Giuseppe, F. De Martini, D. Boschi

Published Jul 1, 1997• 67 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report the results of an experiment in which postselected polarization-entangled photons were used to test the recent nonlocality proof by L. Hardy [Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 1665 (1993)]. The particular source of entangled photons used in the experiment has the advantage that it is very easy to prepare a pair of photons in a state with any degree of entanglement. Hardy's theorem, which only works for nonmaximally entangled states, was tested for a range of states.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.56.176

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We report the results of an experiment in which postselected polarization-entangled photons were used to test the recent nonlocality proof by L. Hardy [Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 1665 (1993)]. The particular source of entangled photons used in the experiment has the advantage that it is very easy to prepare a pair of photons in a state with any degree of entanglement. Hardy's theorem, which only works for nonmaximally entangled states, was tested for a range of states.
Hardy’s theorem on nonlocality has been verified by a series of experiments with two-qubit entangled pure states. However, in this paper we demonstrate the experimental test of the theorem by using the two-photon entangled mixed states. We first investigate the generic logic in Hardy’s proof of nonlocality, which can be applied for arbitrary two-qubit mixed polarization entangled states and can be reduced naturally to the well-known logic tested successfully by the previous pure state experiments. Then, the optimized violations of locality for various experimental parameters are delivered by the numerical method. Finally, the logic argued above for testing Hardy’s theorem on nonlocality is demonstrated experimentally by using the mixed entangled-photon pairs generated via pumping two type-I BBO crystals. Our experimental results shows that Hardy’s proof of nonlocality can also be verified with two-qubit polarization entangled mixed states, with a violation of about 3.4 standard deviations.
We have experimentally tested the non local properties of the states generated by a high brilliance source of entanglement which virtually allows the direct measurement of the full set of photon pairs created by the basic QED process implied by the parametric quantum scattering. Standard Bell measurements and Bell's inequality violation test have been realized over the entire cone of emission of the degenerate pairs. By the same source we have verified the Hardy's ladder theory up to the 20th step and the contradiction between the standard quantum theory and the local realism has been tested for 41% of entangled pairs. PACS: 03.65.Ud, 03.67.Mn, 42.65.Lm
We have performed a test of local realism using entangled photons produced by spontaneous parametric downconversion. This experimental test is based on an idea originally proposed by Hardy for a test of local realism without inequalities, although our experiment actually measures an inequality (as any experiment must). We find a more-than-70 standard deviation violation of the predictions of local realism. The experimental effort required for this test is essentially the same as that required for a test of a Bell inequality. However, this test is based on concepts that are easier to understand and more compelling than those behind the original Bell inequality.
Bell's theorem states that the quantum mechanical description of physical quantities cannot be fully explained by local realistic theories, laying a solid basis for various quantum information applications. Hardy's paradox is celebrated as the simplest form of Bell's theorem concerning its "All versus Nothing" approach to test local realism. However, due to experimental imperfections, existing tests of Hardy's paradox require additional assumptions of the experimental systems, and these assumptions constitute potential loopholes for faithfully testing local realistic theories. Here, we experimentally demonstrate Hardy's nonlocality through a photonic entanglement source. By achieving a detection efficiency of 82.2%, a quantum state fidelity of 99.10%, and applying high-speed quantum random number generators for the measurement setting switching, the experiment is implemented in a loophole-free manner. During 6 h of running, a strong violation of P_{Hardy}=4.646×10^{-4} up to 5 standard deviations is observed with 4.32×10^{9} trials. A null hypothesis test shows that the results can be explained by local realistic theories with an upper bound probability of 10^{-16348}. These testing results provide affirmative evidence against local realism, and establish an advancing benchmark for quantum information applications based on Hardy's paradox.
We show two experimental realizations of Hardy's ladder test of quantum nonlocality using energy-time correlated photons, following the scheme proposed by Cabello et al.[Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 040401 (2009)]. Unlike previous energy-time Bell experiments, these tests require precisely tailored nonmaximally entangled states. One of them is equivalent to the two-setting and two-outcome Bell test requiring a minimum detection efficiency. The reported experiments are still affected by the locality and detection loopholes, but are free of the post-selection loophole of previous energy-time and time-bin Bell tests.