2002/06/30 by Daniele Tommasini, D. Tommasini · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1134/1.1576845
published as Opt. Spectrosc. 94 (2003) 741-745 · Published version, with updated reference
openalex publication_date 2003/05/01 · arxiv created 2004/03/05 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2019/06/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen pointed out that the quantum-mechanical description of “physical reality” implies an unphysical, instantaneous action between distant measurements. To avoid such an action at a distance, these three concluded that quantum mechanics had to be incomplete. However, its extensions involving additional “hidden variables,” allowing for the recovery of determinism and locality, have been disproved experimentally (Bell’s theorem). In this paper, an opposite solution of the paradox is presented, based on the greater indeterminism of the modern quantum field theory (QFT) description of particle physics, which prevents the preparation of any state having a definite number of particles. The resulting uncertainty in photon radiation has interesting consequences in quantum information theory (e.g., cryptography and teleportation). Moreover, since it allows for fewer elements of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) physical reality than the old non-relativistic quantum mechanics, QFT satisfies the EPR condition of completeness without the need for hidden variables. The residual physical reality never violates locality; thus, the unique objective proof of “quantum nonlocality” is removed in an interpretation-independent way. At the same time, the supposed nonlocality of the EPR correlations turns out to be a problem in interpretation of the measurement process. If we do not rely on hidden variables or new physics beyond QFT, the viable interpretation is a minimal statistical one, which preserves locality and Lorentz symmetry.