An experiment proposed by Yurke and Stoler, and similar to that realized experimentally by Sciarrino et al., is analyzed. In Sciarrinos realization, identical photons from a degenerated down-conversion pair are used, i.e. the photons met in the past.
In the experiment analyzed here the particles are also identical, but from different sources. As long as one can tell from which source came each particle, the joint wave function remains factorizable. However, a configuration is created in which one cannot tell anymore which particle came from which source. As a result, the wave function becomes non-factorizable, symmetrical (for bosons) or antisymmetrical (for fermions). In part of the cases the situation is even more surprising: the particles never meet, s.t. the symmetry (antisymmetry) is produced at-a-distance without the particles having had the possibility to interact in any way.
Whether the quantum mechanics (QM) is non-local is an issue disputed for a long time. The violation of the Bell-type inequalities was considered as proving this non-locality. However, these inequalities are constructed on a class of local hidden vari
ables, which obey the calculus with positive probabilities. Such a calculus is rather suitable for billiard balls while the QM deals with wave-packets of complex amplitudes. There is no wonder that a calculus with positive numbers does not match a calculus with complex numbers. The present text describes a different model of hidden variables for entanglements, model that reproduces the quantum predictions in different experiments, and also explains why the QM is nonlocal. The model deals with waves, some of them full and the others empty, and the hidden variables mark which waves are full. The basic physical concept with which the model operates is joint amplitudes of probability, and not probabilities. The latter are a secondary concept, the probability of a combination of results being equal to the absolute square of sum of all the contributing joint amplitudes. Thus the non-locality appears: a) a joint amplitude ignores distance, it handles distant particles as if they were one single particle at one single place, b) joint amplitudes are complex numbers and the sum of several contributions may vanish, blocking the respective combination of wave-packets and therefore of results. Although showing the success of the model, this text does not advocate for full/empty waves. It is shown that this hypothesis works only as long as one does not consider moving observers, and does not compare their conclusions. The real purpose here is to point to a severe impasse: assuming the existence of a preferred frame contradicts the theory of relativity, while refuting the full/empty waves idea one runs into other insurmountable difficulties.
When a quantum object -- a particle as we call it in a non-rigorous way -- is described by a multi-branched wave- function, with the corresponding wave-packets occupying separated regions of the time-space, a frequently asked question is whether the
quantum object is actually contained in only one of these wave-packets. If the answer is positive, then the other wave-packets are called in literature empty waves. The wave-packet containing the object is called a full wave, and is the only one that would produce a recording in a detector. A question immediately arising is whether the empty waves may also have an observable effect. Different works were dedicated to the elucidation of this question. None of them proved that the hypothesis of full/empty waves is correct - it may be that the Nature is indeed non-deterministic and the quantum object is not confined to one region of the space-time. All the works that proved that the empty waves have an effect, in fact, proved that if there exist full and empty waves, then the latter may have an observable effect. This is also the purpose and the limitation of the present work. What is shown here is that if the hypothesis is true, the empty waves have an influence. An experiment is indicated which reveals this influence. The analysis of the experiment is according to the quantum formalism. This experiment has the advantage of being more intuitive and practically more feasible than a previous proposal also in agreement with the quantum formalism. However, the presently proposed experiment also shows that the quantum theory is not in favor of the above hypothesis.
A single-particle multi-branched wave-function is studied. Usual which-path tests show that if the detector placed on one branch clicks, the detectors on the other branches remain silent. By the collapse postulate, after this click, the state of the
particle is reduced to a single branch, the branch on which the detector clicked. The present article challenges the collapse postulate, claiming that when one branch of the wave-function produces a click in a detector, the other branches dont disappear. They cant produce clicks in detectors, but they are still there. An experiment different from which-path test is proposed, which shows that detectors are responsible for strongly decohering the wave-function, but not for making parts of it disappear. Moreover, one of the branches supposed to disappear may produce an interference pattern with a wave-packet of another particle.
The basic Leggett inequalities, i.e. those inequalities in which the particular assumptions of Leggetts hidden-variable model (e.g. Malus law) were not yet introduced, are usually derived using hidden-variable distributions of probabilities (although
in some cases completely general, positive probabilities would lead to the same result). This fact creates sometimes the illusion that these basic inequalities are a belonging of the hidden-variable theories and are bound to contradict the quantum theory. In the present text the basic Leggett inequalities are derived in the most general way, i.e. no assumption is made that the distribution of probabilities would result from some wave function, or from some set of classical variables. The consequence is that as long as one and the same probability distribution is used in the calculus of all the averages appearing in the basic Leggett inequalities, no contradiction may occur. These inequalities may be violated only when different averages are calculated with different distributions, for example, some of them calculated with the quantum formalism and the others with some distribution of classical parameters.
Colbeck and Renner [arXiv:0801.2218] analyzed a class of combined models for entanglements in which local and non-local hidden variables cooperate for producing the measurement results. They came to the conclusion that the measurement results are ful
ly independent of the local components of the hidden variables. Their conclusion is based mainly on an assumption on the local hidden variables, assumption similar to the non-signaling property of probabilities of observables values. In the present text it is proved that hidden variables are not observables, so their distributions of probabilities do not necessarily possess the non-signaling property. Also, a counter-example is brought to the Colbeck and Renner assumption, showing that their type of models and conclusion are not general. The question whether hidden variables, local or non-local, exist or not, remains open.
A recent article of Colbeck and Renner tackled the problem whether entanglements may be explained by combined models of local and non-local hidden variables. To the difference from previous works they considered models in which each pair of entangled
particles behaves in the same way, and the particles in the pair are equivalent, i.e. each of them produces its response to a measurement according to both local and non-local hidden variables. Their article aimed at proving that the local hidden variable component in such models has no effect on the measurement results, i.e. only the non-local variables are relevant. However, their proof deals with a very restrictive case and assumes questionable constraints on the hidden variables. The present text studies the Colbeck and Renner class of models on a less restrictive case and under no constraints on the hidden variables. It is shown again that the local component cannot have any influence on the results. However, the Colbeck and Renner class of models is not the only one possible. A different class is described, and it admits local hidden variables by the side of the non-local influence. This class presents a couple of advantages.
Local hidden variables theories didnt succeed to explain the correlations revealed by entanglements. It is obvious that the explanation of the correlations stands in non-local effects, but nobody has ever detected any carriers that travel with superl
uminal velocity s.t. they could candidate for some superluminal connection between distant particles, in order to adjust the results to the correlations. This text explains that the role of creating the correlations is played by what is called here the Negative. This is the part that was removed from the wave function of the independent particles, in order to obtain the entanglement. As it is shown here, for du-particle experiments the Negative consists in du-particle wave-packets. They enter both regions where the particles are tested, s.t. the Negative knows the response given by one particle, and erases the possibilities of forbidden responses from the other particle.
The concept of realism in quantum mechanics means that results of measurement are caused by physical variables, hidden or observable. Local hidden variables were proved unable to explain results of measurements on entangled particles tested far away
from one another. Then, some physicists embraced the idea of nonlocal hidden variables. The present article proves that this idea is problematic, that it runs into an impasse vis-`a-vis the special relativity.
