In "Non-locality and Modality", NATO Science Series II 64, edited by T. Placek and J. Butterfield (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht,2002), pp. 163-174.
Bell gave the now standard definition of a local hidden variable theory and showed that such theories cannot reproduce the predictions of quantum mechanics without violating his ``free will'' criterion: experimenters' measurement choices can be assumed to be uncorrelated with properties of the measured system prior to measurement.
An alternative is considered here: a probabilistic theory of hidden variables underlying quantum mechanics could be statistically local, in the sense that it supplies global configuration probabilities which are defined by expressions involving only local terms. This allows Bell correlations without relying on {\it either} a conspiracy theory in which prior common causes correlate the system state with experimenters' choices {\it or} a reverse causation principle in which experimenters' choices affect the earlier system states. In particular, there is no violation of the free will criterion. It gives a different perspective on Bell correlations, in which the puzzle is not that apparently non-local correlations should emerge from rules involving local quantities, but rather that we do not see more general non-local correlations that allow paradox-immune forms of superluminal signalling.
By assuming a deterministic evolution of quantum systems and taking realism into account, we carefully build a hidden variable theory for Quantum Mechanics based on the notion of ontological states proposed by 't Hooft. We view these ontological states as the ones embedded with realism and compare them to the (usual) quantum states that represent superpositions, viewing the latter as mere information of the system they describe. Such a deterministic model puts forward conditions for the applicability of Bell's inequality: the usual inequality cannot be applied to the usual experiments. We buil…
We look at what type of arguments can rule out the joint reality (or value definiteness) of two observables of a physical system, such as a qubit, and give several strong yet simple no-go results based on assumptions typically weaker than those considered previously. The first result uses simple geometry combined with a locality assumption to derive device-independent steering inequalities. These may also be regarded as "conditional" Bell inequalities, are simpler in principle to test than standard Bell inequalities, and for two-qubit systems are related to properties of the quantum steering e…
The notion of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) "element of reality" is much discussed in the literature on the foundations of quantum mechanics. Recently, it has become particularly relevant due to a proposed criterion of the physical reality of a given quantum mechanical observable [A. L. O. Bilobran and R. M. Angelo, Europhys. Lett. 112, 40005 (2015)]. We examine this proposal and its consequently related measure of non-locality [V. S. Gomez and R. M. Angelo, Phys. Rev. A 97, 012123, (2018)] and argue that the criterion is ill-described as quantifying physical reality without introducing se…
The Bell inequalities stand at the cornerstone of the developments of quantum theory on both the foundational and applied side. The discussion started as a way to test whether the quantum description of reality is complete or not, but it developed in such a way that a new research area stemmed from it, namely quantum information. Far from being and exhausted topic, in the present paper we present a constructive and geometrically intuitive description of the local polytope and its facets in a bipartite Bell scenario with two dichotomic measurements per party.
We study the generation of single photon perfect W-state. An important aspect of this perfect W-state is that, it can be used for perfect teleportation and superdense coding, which are not achievable with maximally entangled W-state. Our scheme for generation involves entanglement between various path degrees of freedom of a single photon in a compact and weakly coupled integrated waveguide system, which can be fabricated precisely with femtosecond laser direct writing technique. These platforms are interferometrically stable, scalable, less sensitive to decoherence and ensures a very low loss…
Non-locality without inequality is an elegant argument introduced by L. Hardy for two qubit systems, and later generalised to $n$ qubits, to establish contradiction of quantum theory with local realism. Interestingly, for $n=2$ this argument is actually a corollary of Bell-type inequalities, viz. the CH-Hardy inequality involving Bell correlations, but for $n$ greater than 2 it involves $n$-particle probabilities more general than Bell-correlations. In this paper, we first derive a chain of completely new local realistic inequalities involving joint probabilities for $n$ qubits, and then, asso…
Infra-quantum mechanics and critical examination of Bell's theorem on locality The principles of a revolution of epistemology revealed in the descriptions of microstates
This is a brief review on the theoretical interpretation of the Aharonov-Bohm effect, which also contains our new insight into the problem. A particular emphasis is put on the unique role of electron orbital angular momentum, especially viewed from the novel concept of the physical component of the gauge field, which has been extensively discussed in the context of the nucleon spin decomposition problem as well as the photon angular momentum decomposition problem. Practically, we concentrate on the frequently discussed idealized setting of the Aharonov-Bohm effect, i.e. the interference phenom…
Quantum physics, which describes the strange behavior of light and matter at the smallest scales, is one of the most successful descriptions of reality, yet it is notoriously inaccessible. Here we provide an approachable explanation of quantum physics using simple thought experiments. We derive all relevant quantum predictions using minimal mathematics, without introducing the advanced calculations that are typically used to describe quantum physics. We focus on the two key surprises of quantum physics, namely wave-particle duality, a term that was introduced to capture the fact that single qu…
