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Phys. Rev. A 62, 022110 (2000) [10 pages]

Violations of Bell inequalities for measurements with macroscopic uncertainties: What it means to violate macroscopic local realism

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M. D. Reid
Department of Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia 4067

Received 19 July 1999; published 18 July 2000

We suggest a method to test the premise of “macroscopic local realism” that is sufficient to derive Bell inequalities when measurements of photon numbers are only accurate to an uncertainty of order n photons, where n is macroscopic. Macroscopic local realism is only sufficient to imply, in the context of the original Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument, fuzzy “elements of reality” that have a macroscopic indeterminacy. We show therefore how the violation of local realism in the presence of macroscopic uncertainties implies the failure of macroscopic local realism. Quantum states violating this macroscopic local realism are presented.

© 2000 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.62.022110
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.62.022110
PACS:
03.65.Bz