Abstract

We investigate the possibility of more rigorous tests of quantum mechanical predictions against those of local realistic theories, than the traditional Bell inequality tests. The motivation is partly to understand quantum measurement theory better - and partly to test quantum mechanics as completely as possible. An example of a local realistic theory is stochastic electrodynamics. This is equivalent to the semi-classical approach of taking a classical model and adding some noise intended to represent the quantum mechanical vacuum fluctuations. Thus, it is a hidden variable theory in the sense described by Bell, and so it can be expected to give predictions incompatible with quantum mechanics. However, tests of the Bell inequality, which can exlcude hidden variable theories in principle, have encountered problems of low detector efficiency.

© 1996 Optical Society of America