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Bell Inequalities, Experimental Protocols and Contextuality

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Abstract

In this paper we give additional arguments in favor of the point of view that the violation of Bell, CHSH and CH inequalities is not due to a mysterious non locality of nature. We concentrate on an intimate relation between a protocol of a random experiment and a probabilistic model which is used to describe it. We discuss in a simple way differences between attributive joint probability distributions and generalized joint probability distributions of outcomes from distant experiments which depend on how the pairing of these outcomes is defined. We analyze in detail experimental protocols implied by local realistic and stochastic hidden variable models and show that they are incompatible with the protocols used in spin polarization correlation experiments. We discuss also the meaning of “free will”, differences between quantum and classical filters, contextuality of Kolmogorov models, contextuality of quantum theory (QT) and show how this contextuality has to be taken into account in probabilistic models trying to explain in an intuitive way the predictions of QT. The long range imperfect correlations between the clicks of distant detectors can be explained by partially preserved correlations between the signals created by a source. These correlations can only be preserved if the clicks are produced in a local and deterministic way depending on intrinsic parameters describing signals and measuring devices in the moment of the measurement. If an act of a measurement was irreducibly random they would be destroyed. It seems to indicate that QT may be in fact emerging from some underlying more detailed theory of physical phenomena. If this was a case then there is a chance to find in time series of experimental data some fine structures not predicted by QT. This would be a major discovery because it would not only prove that QT does not provide a complete description of individual physical systems but it would prove that it is not predictably complete.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to UQO for a travel Grant and to Andrei Khrennikov for his hospitality and for the invitation to give a talk during this interesting QTPA conference.

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  1. Département de l’Informatique, Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO), Case postale 1250, succursale Hull, Gatineau, QC, J8X 3X 7, Canada

    Marian Kupczynski

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Kupczynski, M. Bell Inequalities, Experimental Protocols and Contextuality. Found Phys 45, 735–753 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-014-9863-4

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