An abstract long-distance correlation experiment

[strangerep]

[...]
However, I still don't understand what his interpretation really is, or how it applies in the most interesting case--EPR.

IIUC, it's still only an interpretation. The idea is that correlations are what's physically real. Then, since the correlata are unphysical, it's a red herring that they "seem" to influence each other superluminally. One should instead concentrate on how correlations evolve.

But like all interpretations, one's tummy is left feeling insufficiently fed. Afaict, there's not really any new tangible physics there -- just a different way of thinking about things that (hopefully) banishes some of the older philosophical puzzles.

I wonder whether Mermin still lives here [Ithaca]

His webpage at Cornell University still seems active, though he retired 10 yrs ago. I was interested to see that the leading quote on his webpage (from 1931) is relevant to this thread:

"Quantum mechanics forbids statements about the object. It deals only with the object-subject relation." — Schroedinger to Sommerfeld, 1931.

Apparently Mermin is also responsible for the "shut up and calculate" phrase.

 

[Mentz114]

That's very interesting, are there explicit constructions?

You asked about this a long time ago and I found this paper (*).

Instead of polarisers the theory and experiment uses phase plates('parity rotators'). This means they are looking for correlations in the spatial domain and they map the infinite dimensional position space into 2D parity space so the CHSH inequality can be realized. The important thing is that the correlations are explicitly non-local as shown in equation (2).

I see this as possible support for the change in the correlations ( ie probabilities of coincidences) at phase-velocity.
Or perhaps I'm just out-of-phase on this.

(*)
Experimental Violation of Bell’s Inequality in Spatial-Parity Space
Timothy Yarnall, Ayman F. Abouraddy,Bahaa E. A. Saleh, Malvin C. Teich
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0708.0653.pdf

We report the first experimental violation of Bell’s inequality in the spatial domain using the
Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen state. Two-photon states generated via optical spontaneous parametric
downconversion are shown to be entangled in the parity of their one-dimensional transverse spatial
profile. Superpositions of Bell states are prepared by manipulation of the optical pump’s transverse
spatial parity—a classical parameter. The Bell-operator measurements are made possible by devising
simple optical arrangements that perform rotations in the one-dimensional spatial-parity space of
each photon of an entangled pair and projective measurements onto a basis of even–odd functions.
A Bell-operator value of 2.389 ± 0.016 is recorded, a violation of the inequality by more than 24
standard deviations

 

[edguy99]

.. Does this help?

Sure does, Thanks a lot.

Sorry for slow response, I was out of internet access for 2 weeks. :)