Experimental realization of a first test of de Broglie Bohm theory

Abstract

Quantum Mechanics is a pillar of modern physics, confirmed by a huge amount of experiments.Nevertheless, it presents many unintuitive properties, strongly differing from classical mechanics due to its intrinsic non-epistemic probabilistic nature. Many attempts have been devoted to build a deterministic theory reproducing all the results of Standard Quantum Mechanics (SQM), but where probabilities are epistemic, namely due to our ignorance of some hidden variables. These theories can be local or non-local. The formers are substantially excluded by Bell inequalities experiments [1,3]. The latter include the de Broglie -Bohm (dBB) one [1,8], the most successful attempt in this sense. DBB theory is built in order to reproduce almost all SQM predictions.However, it has recently been shown [4,5,6] that different coincidence patterns are predicted by SQM and dBB when a double slit experiment is realised under specific conditions, in particular no coincidence is expected when the two photodetectors are in the same semiplane respect to the median symmetry axis of the double slit. In this letter we present the first realisation of such a double slit experiment with correlated photons produced in type I parametric down conversion.We observe a perfect agreement with SQM prediction and a coincidence peak almost 8 standard deviations above zero, when the two photodetectors are well inside the same semiplane: Thus our results confirm Standard Quantum Mechanics contradicting dBB predictions.PACS numbers: 03.65.Ta * Electronic address: genovese@ien.it; URL: http://www.ien.it/~genovese/marco.html † Dedicated to the memory of our beloved friend and collaborator Carlo Novero.

Research on hidden variable theories: A review of recent progresses

“…In little more detail, this scheme considers two identical particles crossing at the same time a double slit each at a specific slit: the calculation of trajectories show that they never cross the double slit symmetry axis and therefore no coincidences are expected in the same semiplane at variance with SQM result. Even if the debate about the validity of this theoretical prediction or its specificity for some variant of dBB model (or an application of this scheme to Nelson Stochastic model as well) is not settled yet [472,479,480,481,482,483,484], it is worth to mention that a recent experimental realisation of this scheme [485,486] has obtained results in perfect agreement with SQM (see Fig. 15 for the scheme of this set-up and experimental data).…”

On Empirical Scrutiny of the Bohmian Model Using a Spin Rotator and the Arrival/Transit Time Distribution

“…Next, it is relevant to recall that the general question of equivalence between the standard version and the Bohmian model of quantum mechanics in predicting the observable results pertaining to any Hermitian operator has been much discussed [4][5][6][7][8][9][10], while of late there has been some controversy [32][33][34][35]. Nonetheless, the central point is that, given any example, if the procedure for calculating an observable quantity is unambiguously defined in both the standard and the Bohmian versions of quantum mechanics, the very formulation of the Bohmian model guarantees the equivalence (at-least, in the non-relativistic domain) when the (common) formalism is applied.…”

On the incompatibility of standard quantum mechanics and conventional de Broglie-Bohm theory

“…The appropriate relativistic quantum mechanical theory that is applicable to photons is based on the Harish-Chandra-Kemmer formalism [15]. This formalism and the above arguments have been used to design a realistic experiment with down-converted photon pairs at Turin [16]. The Bohmian trajectories of the photons for this type of experiment have been plotted and will be found in Ref.…”