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arXiv:quant-ph/0701101 · Journal of Modern Optics

Quantumness without quantumness: entanglement as classical correlations in higher dimensions

Vlatko Vedral

Published Sep 10, 2007• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

I exploit the formal equivalence between the ground state of a d-dimensional quantum system and a d + 1-dimensional classical Ising chain to represent quantum entanglement in terms of classical correlations only. This offers a general “local hidden variable model” for all quantum phenomena existing in one dimension lower than the (hidden variable) classical model itself. The local hidden variable model is not contradicted by the implications of Bell's theorem. Formal theory is presented first and then exemplified by the quantum Ising spin chain in a transverse magnetic field. Here I explicitly show how to derive any two site entanglement in the transverse model from the partition function of the classical Ising spin chain existing in two dimensions. Some speculations are then presented regarding possible fundamental implications of these results.

DOI
10.1080/09500340701266922

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I exploit the formal equivalence between the ground state of a d-dimensional quantum system and a d + 1-dimensional classical Ising chain to represent quantum entanglement in terms of classical correlations only. This offers a general “local hidden variable model” for all quantum phenomena existing in one dimension lower than the (hidden variable) classical model itself. The local hidden variable model is not contradicted by the implications of Bell's theorem. Formal theory is presented first and then exemplified by the quantum Ising spin chain in a transverse magnetic field. Here I explicitly show how to derive any two site entanglement in the transverse model from the partition function of the classical Ising spin chain existing in two dimensions. Some speculations are then presented regarding possible fundamental implications of these results.
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While entanglement and violation of Bell inequalities were initially thought to be equivalent quantum phenomena, we now have different examples of entangled states whose correlations can be described by local hidden--variable models and, therefore, do not violate any Bell inequality. We provide an up to date overview of the existing local hidden--variable models for entangled quantum states, both in the bipartite and multipartite case, and discuss some of the most relevant open questions in this context. Our review covers twenty five years of this line of research since the seminal work by Werner [R. F. Werner, Phys. Rev. A 40, 8 (1989)] providing the first example of an entangled state with a local model, which in turn appeared twenty five years after the seminal work by Bell [J. S. Bell, Physics 1, 195 (1964)], about the impossibility of recovering the predictions of quantum mechanics using a local hidden--variables theory.
We have thus far looked at the classical statistical mechanics of a collection of Ising spins in terms of their partition function. We have seen how to extract the free energy per site and correlation functions of the d = 1 Ising model. We will now consider a second way to do this. While the results are, of course, going to be the same, the method exposes a deep connection between classical statistical mechanics in d = 1 and the quantum mechanics of a single spin-12 particle. This is the simplest way to learn about a connection that has a much wider range of applicability: the classical statistical mechanics of a problem in d dimensions may be mapped on to a quantum problem in d – 1 dimensions. The nature of the quantum variable will depend on the nature of the classical variable. In general, the allowed values of the classical variable ( s =±1 in our example) will correspond to the maximal set of simultaneous eigenvalues of the operators in the quantum problem ( σz in our example). Subsequently we will study a problem where the classical variable called x lies in the range –∞ < x < ∞ and will correspond to the eigenvalues of the familiar position operator X that appears in the quantum problem. The correlation functions will become the expectation values in the ground state of a certain transfer matrix . The different sites in the d = 1 lattice will correspond to different, discrete, times in the life of the quantum degree of freedom. By the same token, a quantum problem may be mapped into a statistical mechanics problem in one-higher dimensions, essentially by running the derivation backwards. In this case the resulting partition function is also called the path integral for the quantum problem. There is, however, no guarantee that the classical partition function generated by a legitimate quantum problem (with a Hermitian Hamiltonian) will always make physical sense: the corresponding Boltzmann weights may be negative, or even complex! In the quantum mechanics we first learn, time t is a real parameter. For our purposes we also need to get familiar with quantum mechanics in which time takes on purely imaginary values t = –iτ , where τ is real. It turns out that it is possible to define such a Euclidean quantum mechanics .
Abstract We propose a novel class of local deterministic models to explain the correlations observed in entangled singlet quantum states. In these models, hidden variables influence both the entangled pair preparation and the measurement settings, thereby relaxing the measurement independence assumption used in Bell’s theorem. Our model accurately reproduces the expected quantum results and demonstrates that freely chosen measurement settings do not necessarily preclude the possibility of hidden variables inducing correlations between the settings and outcomes. This approach reveals an intricate relationship between local determinism and quantum mechanics, showing that local hidden variable theories can be consistent with the predictions of quantum theory. This result calls into question the conventional interpretation, based on Bell’s inequalities, that local theories are fundamentally incompatible with quantum mechanics.
I derive the correlation function for a general theory of two-valued spin variables that satisfy the fundamental conservation law of angular momentum. The unique theory-independent correlation function is identical to the quantum mechanical correlation function. I prove that any theory of correlations of such discrete variables satisfying the fundamental conservation law of angular momentum violates the Bell’s inequalities. Taken together with the Bell’s theorem, this result has far reaching implications. No theory satisfying Einstein locality, reality in the EPR-Bell sense, and the validity of the conservation law can be constructed. Therefore, all local hidden variable theories are incompatible with fundamental symmetries and conservation laws. Bell’s inequalities can be obeyed only by violating a conservation law. The implications for experiments on Bell’s inequalities are obvious. The result provides new insight regarding entanglement, and its measures. PACS Numbers: 03.65.Ta, 03.65.Ud The main result of this paper is the proof that a general physical theory of correlations of two-valued spin projections violate the Bell’s inequalities if the theory satisfies the conservation law for angular momentum on the average. The proof is applicable to local hidden variable theories, as well as