Bell nonlocality and the reality of the quantum wave function
Article Type
Research Article
Publication Title
Physical Review A
Abstract
The status of the quantum wave function is one of the most debated issues in quantum foundations - whether it corresponds directly to the reality or just represents knowledge or information about some aspect of reality. We propose a ψ-ontology theorem that excludes a class of ontological explanations where the quantum wave function is treated as mere information. Our result, unlike the acclaimed Pusey-Barrett-Rudolph's theorem, does not presume the absence of holistic ontological properties for product quantum preparations. At the core of our derivation, we utilize the seminal no-go result by Bell that rules out any local realistic world view for quantum theory. We show that the observed phenomenon of quantum nonlocality cannot be incorporated in a class of ψ-epistemic models. Using the well-known Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality, we obtain a threshold bound on the degree of epistemicity above which the ontological models are not compatible with quantum statistics.
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevA.104.022217
Publication Date
8-1-2021
Recommended Citation
Das Bhowmik, Anandamay; Parashar, Preeti; and Banik, Manik, "Bell nonlocality and the reality of the quantum wave function" (2021). Journal Articles. 1846.
https://digitalcommons.isical.ac.in/journal-articles/1846
Comments
Open Access, Green