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Hardy’s Paradox as a Demonstration of Quantum Irrealism

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Abstract

Hardy’s paradox was originally presented as a demonstration, without inequalities, of the incompatibility between quantum mechanics and the hypothesis of local causality. Equipped with newly developed tools that allow for a quantitative assessment of realism, here we revisit Hardy’s paradox and argue that nonlocal causality is not mandatory for its solution; quantum irrealism suffices.

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Notes

  1. It is worth noticing that Hardy himself suggested in his 1992 paper [10] that abandoning realism would be another way out of the paradox. This suggestion was supported by the demonstration, given in the very same work, that realistic theories cannot be Lorentz invariant. It seems to us, however, that, despite the relevance of such argument, viewing Hardy’s paradox as a demonstration of nonlocality has been the prevalent position among physicists.

  2. Of course, we are artificially “turning off” both the Coulomb and the gravitational interactions between the positron and the electron. This is not a big deal for actual experiments, which usually employ photonic platforms.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge CNPq (Brazil) and the National Institute for Science and Technology of Quantum Information (CNPq, INCT-IQ 465469/2014-0).

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  1. Department of Physics, Federal University of Paraná, P.O. Box 19044, 81531-980, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil

    Nicholas G. Engelbert & Renato M. Angelo

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Correspondence to Renato M. Angelo.

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Engelbert, N.G., Angelo, R.M. Hardy’s Paradox as a Demonstration of Quantum Irrealism. Found Phys 50, 105–119 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-020-00321-z

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