The source of polarization entangled pairs of photons and testing bell’s inequality

Heonoh Kim, Osung Kwon, Han Seb Moon

We report a source of polarization-entangled photon pairs in the 1550-nm telecommunication band, which is based on non-collinear spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal pumped by picosecond pulses. This source is realized utilizing a polarization-based Sagnac interferometer employing a type-0 non-collinear quasi-phase-matching configuration. Polarization entanglement is verified through measurement of the polarization-correlation interference fringes with visibility >96% and by testing the experimental violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) form of Bell's inequality. The CHSH-Bell parameter S is found to be 2.72 ± 0.04, with 18 standard deviations from the statistical uncertainty.

Ajoy Kumar Ghatak

Biao Wu

Jiunn-Wei Chen, Shou-Huang Dai, Debaprasad Maity +2 more

We explore the possibility of detecting entangled photon pairs from cosmic microwave background or other cosmological sources coming from two patches of the sky. The measurements use two detectors with different photon polarizer directions. When two photon sources are separated by a large angle relative to the earth, such that each detector has only one photon source in its field of view, a null test of unentangled photons can be performed. The deviation from this unentangled background is, in principle, the signature of photon entanglement. To confirm whether the deviation is consistent with entangled photons, we derive a photon polarization correlation to compare with, similar to that in a Bell inequality measurement. However, since photon coincidence measurement cannot be used to discriminate unentangled cosmic photons, it is unlikely that the correlation expectation value alone can violate Bell inequality to provide the signature for entanglement.

Ting Zhou

Conventional tests of Bell’s inequality rely on entangled photon pairs. Here, we replace entangled pairs with two independent photons of orthogonal polarization, and demonstrate that Bell’s inequality is still violated. Given the inherent local realism of independent photons, this experiment proves that Bell’s inequality cannot falsify the local realism of photons. We thus conjecture that the violation of Bell’s inequality by entangled photon pairs originates from their orthogonal polarizations, rather than the breakdown of local realism. To interpret this unexpected violation with independent photons, we further substitute the two photons with two monochromatic light beams, and calculate the transmittance correlation through polarizers via Malus’s law and Karl Pearson’s correlation formula. We show that this correlation also defies Bell’s inequality. Retracing the derivation of Bell’s inequality reveals its validity is restricted to binary events, which accounts for the observed violation with light beams. Finally, we propose a thought experiment involving gradual attenuation of light intensity down to the single-photon regime, and hypothesize that single-photon transmission through a polarizer does not constitute a binary event. This hypothesis provides a unified interpretation for both our experimental findings and all canonical Bell inequality tests reported to date.

Climério Paulo da Silva Neto