Aspects of Nonlocality in Quantum Mechanics

Zeng‐Bing Chen, Sixia Yu, Zhang, Yong-De +1 more

Although entanglement is widely recognized as one of the most fascinating characteristics of quantum mechanics, nonlocality remains to be a big labyrinth. The proof of existence of nonlocality is as yet not much convincing because of its strong reliance on Bell's theorem where the assumption of realism weakens the proof. We demonstrate that entanglement and quantum nonlocality are two equivalent aspects of the same quantum wholeness for spacelike separated quantum systems. This result implies that quantum mechanics is indeed a nonlocal theory and lays foundation of understanding quantum nonlocality beyond Bell's theorem.

Sandu Popescu

Diederik Aerts, Bart D’Hooghe

Andrey Anatoljevich Grib, Waldyr A. Rodrigues

Thomas A. Brody, L. de la Peña-Auerbach

S. P. Boughn

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.