From: Caroline H Thompson [ch.thompson1@virgin.net]
Sent: 02 October 2004 00:05
To: prl@aps.org
Cc: D L Mochring; John Clauser; Philippe Grangier; Franck Laloe; Abner
Shimony
Subject: "Nonlocality"
The Editor
Physical Review Letters
Dear Sir
I'm afraid the situation re claims of "quantum entanglement" does not seem to have improved! You cannot fail to be aware of the fact that the violation of a Bell test that was subject to "loopholes" has no validity as evidence of quantum entanglement, but are your readers equally enlightened? I suspect not. When they see a title saying "Experimental Bell Inequality Violation with an Atom and a Photon" (D L Mochring et al, PRL 93 (9) 090410(4)) they will naturally assume that we have here yet more evidence that quantum entanglement really happens. Nothing in the abstract disillusions them, and the article (except for those who read to the very end) will add to the impression already gained from titles such as Aspect's of 1999: "“Bell's inequality test: more ideal than ever” (Nature 398, March 1999, pp 189-190). The popular press, at least, is now totally convinced that quantum entanglement is a fact.
Can you not please take steps to ensure that titles and abstracts are not so misleading? I can only assume from your acceptance of these articles that you have failed to recognise the importance of the detection loophole. Perhaps the time has come for a new paper based on my Chaotic Ball model? The revised version I mention below was turned down by Physical Review A (it became too long to meet your 4-page limit). The reason given was simply that they have a policy decision that effectively bans all articles on the loopholes.
Below is my previous message on this subject.
Yours sincerely
Caroline H Thompson
-----Original
Message-----
From: c.h.thompson [mailto:c.h.thompson@pgen.net]
Sent: 17 February 2002 23:36
To: prl@aps.org
Cc: John Clauser; Philippe Grangier; Franck Laloe; Abner Shimony
Subject: "Nonlocality"
The Editor
Physical Review Letters
Re:
Experimental Nonlocality Proof
of Quantum Teleportation and Entanglement Swapping
Authors: Thomas Jennewein, Gregor Weihs, Jian-Wei Pan, Anton Zeilinger
Journal-ref: Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 017903 (2002)
Dear Sir
I should like to point out that the title, abstract and, indeed, much of the content of the above paper is very misleading. (I have already written to the authors.) I few years ago, after correspondence relating to my own submission [LD6770], I made a similar complaint, and at that time was informed that it was too late as the article concerned was already in print. Yet you continue to accept articles that do not even mention in title or abstract that fact that nonlocality has not been "proved", as there are known loopholes.
The article by Jennewein et al. not only fails to inform the reader of this at the outset, but applies a Bell test that is blatantly invalid! It is clear from the text -- from the fact that the coincidence rate is not constant, and from the fact that this has known causes -- that "fair sampling" cannot be assumed. The sample for polarisers at 45 deg is clearly taken not taken fairly from the full population.
I am currently working on a revised version of my first paper on this subject. The model itself is unchanged, however. Might I recommend that your referees consult:
C. H. Thompson, “The Chaotic Ball: An Intuitive Analogy for EPR Experiments”, Found. Phys. Lett. 9, 357 (1996), http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9611037
They might also find the following relevant:
C. H. Thompson, “Subtraction of ``accidentals'' and the validity of Bell tests” (1999), http://arXiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9903066
C. H. Thompson, “Rotational invariance, phase relationships and the quantum entanglement illusion”, (1999) http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9912082
The abstract of Jennewein's article reads:
Quantum teleportation strikingly underlines the peculiar features of the quantum world. We present an experimental proof of its quantum nature, teleporting an entangled photon with such high quality that the nonlocal quantum correlations with its original partner photon are preserved. This procedure is also known as entanglement swapping. The nonlocality is confirmed by observing a violation of Bell's inequality by 4.5 standard deviations. Thus, by demonstrating quantum nonlocality for photons that never interacted our results directly confirm the quantum nature of teleportation.
With the application of an inappropriate test, no mention of nonlocality is justified.
My paper on subtraction of accidentals was not accepted back in 1997-8, but I wonder if you would be interested in my revised Chaotic Ball paper? The model has been received with some enthusiasm by a number of people, including Franck Laloë.
Yours sincerely
Caroline
H Thompson