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Strong Loophole-Free Test of Local Realism*

Lynden K. Shalm et al.
Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 250402 – Published 16 December 2015
Physics logo See Viewpoint: Closing the Door on Einstein and Bohr’s Quantum Debate
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Abstract

We present a loophole-free violation of local realism using entangled photon pairs. We ensure that all relevant events in our Bell test are spacelike separated by placing the parties far enough apart and by using fast random number generators and high-speed polarization measurements. A high-quality polarization-entangled source of photons, combined with high-efficiency, low-noise, single-photon detectors, allows us to make measurements without requiring any fair-sampling assumptions. Using a hypothesis test, we compute p values as small as 5.9×109 for our Bell violation while maintaining the spacelike separation of our events. We estimate the degree to which a local realistic system could predict our measurement choices. Accounting for this predictability, our smallest adjusted p value is 2.3×107. We therefore reject the hypothesis that local realism governs our experiment.

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  • Received 10 November 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.250402

This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

  • *This work includes contributions of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which are not subject to U.S. copyright.

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & OpticalGeneral Physics

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Closing the Door on Einstein and Bohr’s Quantum Debate

Published 16 December 2015

By closing two loopholes at once, three experimental tests of Bell’s inequalities remove the last doubts that we should renounce local realism. They also open the door to new quantum information technologies.

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See Also

Significant-Loophole-Free Test of Bell’s Theorem with Entangled Photons

Marissa Giustina, Marijn A. M. Versteegh, Sören Wengerowsky, Johannes Handsteiner, Armin Hochrainer, Kevin Phelan, Fabian Steinlechner, Johannes Kofler, Jan-Åke Larsson, Carlos Abellán, Waldimar Amaya, Valerio Pruneri, Morgan W. Mitchell, Jörn Beyer, Thomas Gerrits, Adriana E. Lita, Lynden K. Shalm, Sae Woo Nam, Thomas Scheidl, Rupert Ursin, Bernhard Wittmann, and Anton Zeilinger
Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 250401 (2015)

Generation of Fresh and Pure Random Numbers for Loophole-Free Bell Tests

Carlos Abellán, Waldimar Amaya, Daniel Mitrani, Valerio Pruneri, and Morgan W. Mitchell
Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 250403 (2015)

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Issue

Vol. 115, Iss. 25 — 18 December 2015

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