Reexamining the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment, photon correlation and Bell's inequality

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to show that the introduction of hidden variables to describe individual events is fully consistent with the statistical predictions of quantum theory. We illustrate the validity of this assertion by discussing two fundamental experiments on correlated photons which are believed to behave ``violently non-classical''. Our considerations carry over to correlated pairs of neutral particles of spin one-half in a singlet state. Much in the spirit of Einstein's conviction we come to the conclusion that the state vector of a system does not provide an exhaustive description of the individual physical system. We also briefly discuss an experiment on ``quantum teleportation'' and demonstrate that our completely local approach leads to a full understanding of the experiment indicating the absence of any teleportation phenomenon. We caution that the indiscriminated use of the term ``Quantum Theory'' tends to obscure distinct differences between the quantum mechanics of massive particles and the propagation of photons. It is emphasized that the properties of polarizers, beam splitters, halfwave plates etc. used in photon-correlation experiments are defined by the laws of classical optics. Hence, understanding the outcome of those experiments requires a well-founded interconnection between classical and quantum electrodynamics free from unnecessary hypotheses.