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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics

Significant-Loophole-Free Test of Local Realism with Entangled Photons

Marissa Giustina, Marijn A. M. Versteegh, Sören Wengerowsky, Johannes Handsteiner, Armin Hochrainer, Kevin Phelan, Fabian Steinlechner, Johannes Kofler, J P Larsson, Carlos Abellán, Waldimar Amaya, Valerio Pruneri, Morgan W. Mitchell, J. Beyer, Thomas Gerrits, Adriana E. Lita, Lynden K. Shalm, Sae Woo Nam, T. Scheidl, Rupert Ursin, Bernhard Wittmann, Anton Zeilinger

Published Jan 1, 2016• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report an experimental violation of a Bell inequality with strong statistical significance. Our experiment employs polarization measurements on entangled single photons and closes the locality, freedom-of-choice, fair-sampling, coincidence-time, and memory loopholes simultaneously.
DOI
10.1364/cleo_qels.2016.fw4c.3

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We present a loophole-free violation of local realism using entangled photon pairs. We ensure that all relevant events in our Bell test are spacelike separated by placing the parties far enough apart and by using fast random number generators and high-speed polarization measurements. A high-quality polarization-entangled source of photons, combined with high-efficiency, low-noise, single-photon detectors, allows us to make measurements without requiring any fair-sampling assumptions. Using a hypothesis test, we compute p values as small as 5.9×10^{-9} for our Bell violation while maintaining the spacelike separation of our events. We estimate the degree to which a local realistic system could predict our measurement choices. Accounting for this predictability, our smallest adjusted p value is 2.3×10^{-7}. We therefore reject the hypothesis that local realism governs our experiment.
Bell's theorem shows that local realistic theories place strong restrictions on observable correlations between different systems, giving rise to Bell's inequality which can be violated in experiments using entangled quantum states. Bell's theorem is based on the assumptions of realism, locality, and the freedom to choose between measurement settings. In experimental tests, "loopholes" arise which allow observed violations to still be explained by local realistic theories. Violating Bell's inequality while simultaneously closing all such loopholes is one of the most significant still open challenges in fundamental physics today. In this paper, we present an experiment that violates Bell's inequality while simultaneously closing the locality loophole and addressing the freedom-of-choice loophole, also closing the latter within a reasonable set of assumptions. We also explain that the locality and freedom-of-choice loopholes can be closed only within nondeterminism, i.e., in the context of stochastic local realism.
John Bell’s theorem of 1964 states that local elements of physical reality, existing independent of measurement, are inconsistent with the predictions of quantum mechanics (Bell, J. S. (1964), Physics (College. Park. Md). Specifically, correlations between measurement results from distant entangled systems would be smaller than predicted by quantum physics. This is expressed in Bell’s inequalities. Employing modifications of Bell’s inequalities, many experiments have been performed that convincingly support the quantum predictions. Yet, all experiments rely on assumptions, which provide loopholes for a local realist explanation of the measurement. Here we report an experiment with polarization-entangled photons that simultaneously closes the most significant of these loopholes. We use a highly efficient source of entangled photons, distributed these over a distance of 58.5 meters, and implemented rapid random setting generation and high-efficiency detection to observe a violation of a Bell inequality with high statistical significance. The merely statistical probability of our results to occur under local realism is less than 3.74×10-31, corresponding to an 11.5 standard deviation effect.
Local realism is the worldview in which physical properties of objects exist independently of measurement and where physical influences cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Bell's theorem states that this worldview is incompatible with the predictions of quantum mechanics, as is expressed in Bell's inequalities. Previous experiments convincingly supported the quantum predictions. Yet, every experiment requires assumptions that provide loopholes for a local realist explanation. Here, we report a Bell test that closes the most significant of these loopholes simultaneously. Using a well-optimized source of entangled photons, rapid setting generation, and highly efficient superconducting detectors, we observe a violation of a Bell inequality with high statistical significance. The purely statistical probability of our results to occur under local realism does not exceed 3.74×10^{-31}, corresponding to an 11.5 standard deviation effect.
We present a source of entangled photons that violates a Bell inequality free of the "fair-sampling" assumption, by over 7 standard deviations. This violation is the first reported experiment with photons to close the detection loophole, and we demonstrate enough "efficiency" overhead to eventually perform a fully loophole-free test of local realism. The entanglement quality is verified by maximally violating additional Bell tests, testing the upper limit of quantum correlations. Finally, we use the source to generate "device-independent" private quantum random numbers at rates over 4 orders of magnitude beyond previous experiments.
In a local realist model, physical properties are defined prior to and independent of measurement and no physical influence can propagate faster than the speed of light. Proper experimental violation of a Bell inequality would show that the world cannot be described with such a model. Experiments intended to demonstrate a violation usually require additional assumptions that make them vulnerable to a number of ``loopholes.'' In both pulsed and continuously pumped photonic experiments, an experimenter needs to identify which detected photons belong to the same pair, giving rise to the coincidence-time loophole. Here, via two different methods, we derive Clauser-Horne- and Eberhard-type inequalities that are not only free of the fair-sampling assumption (thus not being vulnerable to the detection loophole), but also free of the fair-coincidence assumption (thus not being vulnerable to the coincidence-time loophole). Both approaches can be used for pulsed as well as for continuously pumped experiments. Moreover, as they can also be applied to already existing experimental data, we finally show that a recent experiment [Giustina et al., Nature (London) 497, 227 (2013)] violated local realism without requiring the fair-coincidence assumption.