Dispersion cancellation and quantum eraser experiments analyzed in the Wigner function formalism

Casado, Alberto; Fernández-Rueda, A.; Marshall, Trevor W.; Risco-Delgado, Ramón; Corchero, Emilio Santos

doi:10.1103/physreva.56.2477

Cited by 18 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…A more ambitious program was started by a British-Spaniard group with the hope to build a real alternative to Quantum Optics [297,298,299,300,301,302,303]. The main idea was that the probability distribution for the hidden variable is given by the Wigner function, which is positive for photons experiments.…”

Section: Lhvt Built For Surviving Pdc Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research on hidden variable theories: A review of recent progresses

2005

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Quantum Mechanics (QM) is one of the pillars of modern physics: an impressive amount of experiments have confirmed this theory and many technological applications are based on it. Nevertheless, at one century since its development, various aspects concerning its very foundations still remain to be clarified. Among them, the transition from a microscopic probabilistic world into a macroscopic deterministic one and quantum non-locality. A possible way out from these problems would be if QM represents a statistical approximation of an unknown deterministic theory.This review is addressed to present the most recent progresses on the studies related to Hidden Variable Theories (HVT), both from an experimental and a theoretical point of view, giving a larger emphasis to results with a direct experimental application.More in details, the first part of the review is a historical introduction to this problem. The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument and the first discussions about HVT are introduced, describing the fundamental Bell's proposal for a general experimental test of every Local HVT and the first attempts to realise it.The second part of the review is devoted to elucidate the recent progresses toward a conclusive Bell inequalities experiment obtained with entangled photons and other physical systems.Finally, the last sections are targeted to shortly discuss Non-Local HVT.1

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Section: Lhvt Built For Surviving Pdc Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research on hidden variable theories: A review of recent progresses

2005

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“…Marshall's experimental suggestions involves work he has advanced with colleagues, particularly E. Santos, in "stochastic optics," aiming in particular at a local model explanation of the Bell inequalities [60], [61]. At the end of the 1990s, Marshall developed with colleagues a local physical explanation of entanglement involving a nonlinear optical process often called spontaneous parametric down conversion [62], [63], [64], [65], [66], [67]. This work led them to the prediction of a new phenomena, still to be tested for, involving a natural explanation in terms of unquantized light and local quantities that they have termed spontaneous parametric up conversion [68], [69], [70], [71].…”

Section: Physical Ideas Behind Sedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulation Results Related to Stochastic Electrodynamics

Cole¹

2006

AIP Conference Proceedings

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Abstract. Stochastic electrodynamics (SED) is a classical theory of nature advanced signi…cantly in the 1960s by Trevor Marshall and Timothy Boyer. Since then, SED has continued to be investigated by a very small group of physicists. Early investigations seemed promising, as SED was shown to agree with quantum mechanics (QM) and quantum electrodynamics (QED) for a few linear systems. In particular, agreement was found for the simple harmonic electric dipole oscillator, physical systems composed of such oscillators and interacting electromagnetically, and free electromagnetic …elds with boundary conditions imposed such as would enter into Casimir-type force calculations. These results were found to hold for both zero-point and non-zero temperature conditions. However, by the late 1970s and then into the early 1980s, researchers found that when investigating nonlinear systems, SED did not appear to provide agreement with the predictions of QM and QED. A proposed reason for this disagreement was advocated by Boyer and Cole that such nonlinear systems are not su¢ ciently realistic for describing atomic and molecular physical systems, which should be fundamentally based on the Coulombic binding potential. Analytic attempts on these systems have proven to be most di¢ cult. Consequently, in recent years more attention has been placed on numerically simulating the interaction of a classical electron in a Coulombic binding potential, with classical electromagnetic radiation acting on the classical electron. Good agreement was found for this numerical simulation work as compared with predictions from QM. Here this worked is reviewed and possible directions are discussed. Recent simulation work involving subharmonic resonances for the classical hydrogen atom is also discussed; some of the properties of these subharmonic resonances seem quite interesting and unusual.

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“…We show that entanglement, in the Wigner representation, is just a correlation that involves both signals and vacuum fluctuations. An analysis of the detection process opens the way to a complete description of parametric down conversion in terms of pure Maxwell electromagnetic waves.The theory of parametric down conversion (PDC) was treated, in the Wigner formalism, in an earlier series of articles [1,2,3]. There we showed that, provided one considers the zeropoint fluctuations of the vacuum to be real, the description of radiation is fully within Maxwell electromagnetic theory.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The theory of parametric down conversion (PDC) was treated, in the Wigner formalism, in an earlier series of articles [1,2,3]. There we showed that, provided one considers the zeropoint fluctuations of the vacuum to be real, the description of radiation is fully within Maxwell electromagnetic theory.…”

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confidence: 99%

Type II parametric downconversion in the Wigner-function formalism: entanglement and Bell's inequalities

1998

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We continue the analysis of our previous articles which were devoted to type-I parametric down conversion, the extension to type-II being straightforward. We show that entanglement, in the Wigner representation, is just a correlation that involves both signals and vacuum fluctuations. An analysis of the detection process opens the way to a complete description of parametric down conversion in terms of pure Maxwell electromagnetic waves.The theory of parametric down conversion (PDC) was treated, in the Wigner formalism, in an earlier series of articles [1,2,3]. There we showed that, provided one considers the zeropoint fluctuations of the vacuum to be real, the description of radiation is fully within Maxwell electromagnetic theory. Effectively, because the Wigner function maintains its positivity, we can say that quantization is just the addition of a zeropoint radiation, and there is no need for any further quantization of the light field. In the present article we show that the same result extends, without any difficulty, from the type-I PDC case to the type-II situation.There seems to be a widespread reluctance to accept the reality of the vacuum fluctuations, in spite of the fact that they appear, quite naturally, in the Wigner function of the vacuum state. We remark that such fluctuations have been taken seriously, within a certain school of thought, throughout the entire history of the quantum theory, following the formulation of Max Planck, originating in 1911 [4]. Of course, it is true that, integrated over all frequencies, they give us a vacuum with infinite energy density; why then are all photographic plates not blackened instantaneously? But all photodetectors, including even our own eyes, are very selective, not only as regards the frequency, but even also the wave vectors, of the light components they analyze. This is especially the case with the detectors commonly used in PDC experiments. So, there is a noise to subtract, but it is not infinite! In our previous articles we indicated how the noise subtraction is made, according to the Wigner formalism, and showed how this subtraction is related to the standard calculating device, of normal ordering, used in the Hilbert-space formalism. Here we extend this analysis, in an informal manner, showing that, if we take into account the fact that all detectors integrate the light intensity over a large time window, the process of light detection, like that of light propagation, may also be described entirely in terms of real waves and positive probabilities. We are then able to see that, in terms of a purely wave description, the highly problematic concept of "entangledphoton" states of the field loses all its mystery. Entangled photons are just correlated waves! The only reason this description has taken so long to mature is that the word "classical", in reference to the light field, is restricted in its application to Glauber-classical states [5]. A discussion of the difference between classical and nonclassical effects has been given in Ref. [6]. The

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Dispersion cancellation and quantum eraser experiments analyzed in the Wigner function formalism

Cited by 18 publications

References 6 publications

Research on hidden variable theories: A review of recent progresses

Research on hidden variable theories: A review of recent progresses

Simulation Results Related to Stochastic Electrodynamics

Type II parametric downconversion in the Wigner-function formalism: entanglement and Bell's inequalities

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