The inconsistency of local hidden variables with quantum physics fascinates many physicists. Even though Bell’s theorem was studied mostly in terms of statistical inequalities, Greenberger, Horne, and Zeilinger derived all-versus-nothing test for multiqubit system, which is more striking contradiction without inequalities. This article briefly introduces Anton Zeilinger’s journey toward the Bell’s theorem.
The inconsistency of local hidden variables with quantum physics fascinates many physicists. Even though Bell’s theorem was studied mostly in terms of statistical inequalities, Greenberger, Horne, and Zeilinger derived all-versus-nothing test for multiqubit system, which is more striking contradiction without inequalities. This article briefly introduces Anton Zeilinger’s journey toward the Bell’s theorem.
Introduction Since its inception, fifty years ago, Bell's theorem has had a long history not only of experimental tests but also of theoretical developments. Studying pairs of correlated quantummechanical particles separated in space, in a composite “entangled” state, Bell [1] showed that the joint ascription of hidden variables and locality to the system led to an inequality that is violated by the predictions of quantum mechanics. Fifteen years later, experiments confirmed the predictions of quantum mechanics, ruling out a large class of local realist theories. One of the most meaningful theoretical developments that followed Bell's work was the Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) theorem, also known as Bell's theorem without inequalities. In 1989, the American physicists Daniel Greenberger and Michael Horne, who had been working on Bell's theorem since the late 1960s, together with the Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger, introduced a novelty into the testing of entanglement, extending Bell's theorem in a different and interesting direction. According to Franck Laloë [2], For many years, everyone thought that Bell had basically exhausted the subject by considering all really interesting situations, and that two-spin systems provided the most spectacular quantum violations of local realism. It therefore came as a surprise to many when in 1989 Greenberger, Horne, and Zeilinger (GHZ) showed that systems containing more than two correlated particles may actually exhibit even more dramatic violations of local realism. The trio analyzed the Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen 1935 argument once again and were able to write what are now called Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) entangled states, involving three or four correlated spin-1/2 particles, leading to conflicts between local realist theories and quantum mechanics. However, unlike Bell's theorem, the conflict now was not of a statistical nature, as was the case with Bell's theorem, insofar as measurements on a single GHZ state could lead to conflicting predictions with local realistic models [3–5]. In this paper we present the history of the creation of this theorem and analyze its scope.
Most of the standard proofs of the Bell theorem are based on the Kolmogorov axioms of probability theory. We show that these proofs contain mathematical steps that cannot be reconciled with the Kolmogorov axioms. Specifically we demonstrate that these proofs ignore the conclusion of a theorem of Vorob'ev on the consistency of joint distributions. As a consequence Bell's theorem stated in its full generality remains unproven, in particular, for extended parameter spaces that are still objective local and that include instrument parameters that are correlated by both time and instrument settings. Although the Bell theorem correctly rules out certain small classes of hidden variables, for these extended parameter spaces the standard proofs come to a halt. The Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) approach is based on similar fallacious arguments. For this case we are able to present an objective local computer experiment that simulates the experimental test of GHZ performed by Pan, Bouwmeester, Daniell, Weinfurter and Zeilinger and that directly contradicts their claim that Einstein-local elements of reality can neither explain the results of quantum mechanical theory nor their experimental results.
Bell's theorem revealed that a local hidden-variable model cannot completely reproduce the quantum mechanical predictions. Bell's inequality provides an upper bound under the locality and reality assumptions that can be violated by correlated measurement statistics of quantum mechanics. Greenberger, Horne, and Zeilinger (GHZ) gave a more compelling proof of Bell's theorem without inequalities by considering perfect correlations rather than statistical correlations. This work presents a temporal analog of the GHZ argument that establishes Bell's theorem in time without inequalities.
Bell's inequalities(1964) provides a quantitative criterion to test the local hidden variable theory(LHVT) versus quantum mechanics(QM).For the first time,it leads to the possibility to experimentally distinguish LHVT and QM.So far,there have been tens of experiments ever since the first experiment by Clauser et al(1972).An overwhelming majority of these experiments are in good agreement with the predictions of QM yet violate those of LHVT.Some loopholes in these experiments are discussed in Section I,followed by a respective summary to 12 experiments between 1972 to 1982 and 31 experiments from 1985 and on in Sections II and III.It is finally pointed out that so far there is not a single experiment to close both the locality loophole and the detection loophole at the same time,but the experimental outcomes are irreversible.Accordingly,theoretical physicists must admit that the present physics foundation is broken,i.e.quantum mechanics is contradiction with special relativity.
The Bell theorem can take the form of several inequalities, as we have seen in §4.2. Moreover, since it was discovered, the theorem has stimulated the discovery of several other mathematical contradictions between the predictions of quantum mechanics and those of local realism. We review a few of them in this chapter: GHZ contradictions (§5.1) and their generalization (§5.2), Cabello's inequality (§5.3), and Hardy's impossibilities (§5.4). Finally, in §5.5, we discuss the notion of contextuality and introduce the BKS theorem. GHZ contradiction For many years, everyone thought that Bell had basically exhausted the subject by considering all really interesting situations, and that two-spin systems provided the most spectacular quantum violations of local realism. It therefore came as a surprise to many when in 1989 Greenberger, Horne, and Zeilinger (GHZ) showed that systems containing more than two correlated particles may actually exhibit even more dramatic violations of local realism [188, 189]. They involve a sign contradiction (100% violation) for perfect correlations, while the BCHSH inequalities are violated by about 40% (Cirelson bound) and deal with situations where the results of measurements are not completely correlated. In this section, we discuss three-particle systems, but generalizations to N particles are possible (§5.2). Derivation GHZ contradictions may occur in various systems, not necessarily involving spins. Initially, they were introduced in the context of entanglement swapping (§6.3.2) for four particles [188] or entanglement of three spinless particles [189].