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Oxford University Press eBooks

Entanglement and Non‐Locality: Spooky Actions at a Distance

Christopher C. Gerry, Kimberley M. Bruno

Published Feb 21, 2013• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

This chapter focuses the concepts of entanglement and non-locality. Quantum mechanics has yet another mystery—one that occurs as a consequence of superposition states involving two or more particles or two or more beams of photons. This is referred to as entanglement, also known as non-separability. The existence of entangled states is allowed, and even mandated, by quantum mechanics, and this leads us into yet another mystery: non-locality. It demonstrates how subatomic particles can be put into entangled states which reveal strange correlation effects—the effects being the essence of entanglement. It discusses the EPR argument, from the 1935 paper by Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen; the polarization states of photons; Bell's theorem; and the Hardy–Jordan argument.

DOI
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199666560.003.0005

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This chapter focuses the concepts of entanglement and non-locality. Quantum mechanics has yet another mystery—one that occurs as a consequence of superposition states involving two or more particles or two or more beams of photons. This is referred to as entanglement, also known as non-separability. The existence of entangled states is allowed, and even mandated, by quantum mechanics, and this leads us into yet another mystery: non-locality. It demonstrates how subatomic particles can be put into entangled states which reveal strange correlation effects—the effects being the essence of entanglement. It discusses the EPR argument, from the 1935 paper by Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen; the polarization states of photons; Bell's theorem; and the Hardy–Jordan argument.
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
Quantum entanglement is popularly believed to give rise to spooky action at a distance of a kind that Einstein decisively rejected. Indeed, important recent experiments on systems assigned entangled states have been claimed to refute Einstein by exhibiting such spooky action. After reviewing two considerations in favor of this view I argue that quantum theory can be used to explain puzzling correlations correctly predicted by assignment of entangled quantum states with no such instantaneous action at a distance. We owe both considerations in favor of the view to arguments of John Bell. I present simplified forms of these arguments as well as a game that provides insight into the situation. The argument I give in response turns on a prescriptive view of quantum states that differs both from Dirac’s (as stated in Chapter 2) and Einstein’s.
In classical mechanics, two (or more) systems that do not interact – that do not exert any kind of force on each other – are completely separated (see Sec. 1.1), i.e. experiments performed locally on one of them cannot in any way influence experiments performed locally on the other. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, admits that there can be a form of interdependence even in absence of physical interaction. This type of correlation goes under the name of entanglement (see Def. 5.1: p. 183). We already know that entanglement means non-factorizability of the state vector describing a system with at least two different degrees of freedom. In this chapter, we shall see that this may be the case also for systems that are very far away (space-like distant) from each other and we shall learn many interesting consequences of this state of affairs. Recent developments show that one may entangle even particles that have never interacted with each other. The starting point of the following analysis is necessarily represented by the pioneering paper of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, who inaugurated an incredible series of theoretical and experimental investigations right up to the present day that have confirmed the predictions of quantum mechanics. The “irony” of this history is that Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, EPR for short, aimed to present a definitive proof of the inconsistency of quantum mechanics relative to classical physical theory. In fact, they initiated one of the most prolific fields of modern science.
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.
Entanglement is the superposition of two or more particles in multiple states. An example is given for the double-well potential; another involves particles with spin 1/2. Measurement of spin is carried out by a Stern–Gerlach apparatus, using the deflection of a spin by a magnet. Entangled spin-1/2 states, namely triplet states having total spin 1, and the singlet state, with spin 0, are also examined; the latter state appears in same form when expressed in spin up/down along any Cartesian coordinate. The determination of one of the spins in an entangled singlet state immediately determines the other, resulting in a “spooky action at a distance.” Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) claimed to show, on the basis of local realism, that quantum mechanics must be incomplete because of this feature. Their logic suggests that one might explain the instantaneous results by invoking “hidden variables” not contained in a quantum treatment.
“Quantum entanglement” is a well-known phenomenon in quantum physics that refers to the ability of widely separated, subatomic objects to be mysteriously connected by sharing a common condition or state. Albert Einstein famously called quantum entanglement “spooky action at a distance.” In “Quantum Entanglement” (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Penguin Random House, 2020), author Jed Brody says, “Two particles are entangled if the measurement of one of them, for all practical purposes, instantly affects the other particle over any distance.” We will discuss a connection between random events that, although not on the quantum level, resemble quantum entanglement in some ways. We metaphorically call this connection “random entanglement.”