Reality or Locality? - Proposed test to decide \textit{how} Nature breaks Bell's inequality

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel test to determine whether nature's violation of Bell's inequality is due to non-locality or the absence of objective reality, using reconstruction methods on experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a new experimental approach to distinguish between locality and objective reality in quantum mechanics through data analysis techniques.

Findings

Potential to experimentally differentiate between locality and objective reality

Use of Ruelle and Takens reconstruction method on quantum data

Practical experimental setups suggested for testing the hypothesis

Abstract

Bell's theorem, and its experimental tests, has shown that the two premises for Bell's inequality - locality and objective reality - cannot both hold in nature, as Bell's inequality is broken. A simple test is proposed, which for the first time may decide which alternative nature actually prefers on the fundamental, quantum level. If each microscopic event is truly random (e.g. as assumed in orthodox quantum mechanics) objective reality is not valid, whereas if each event is described by an unknown but deterministic mechanism ("hidden variables") locality is not valid. This may be analyzed and decided by the well-known reconstruction method of Ruelle and Takens; in the former case no structure should be discerned, in the latter a reconstructed structure should be visible. This could in principle be tested by comparing individual "hits" in a double slit experiment, but in practice a single fluorescent atom, and its (seemingly random) temporal switching between active/inactive states would possibly be better/more practical, easier to set up, observe and analyze. However, only imagination limits the list of possible experimental setups.