Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

SYRP: Intersectional Symposium The Concept of Reality in Physics

SYRP 1: The Concept of Reality in Physics I

SYRP 1.2: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 15:00–15:30, HSZ 01

Testing concepts of reality with entangled photons in the laboratory and outside — •Anton Zeilinger — Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Austria

In this talk, I will present some recent experiments on the foundations of quantum mechanics and discuss their implications. In tests of Bell’s Inequalities over a distance of 144 km on the Canary Islands, we recently closed the Freedom of Choice Loophole[1]. There also have been new tests of quantum reality, realizing Schrödinger’s idea of steering Wheeler’s Delayed Choice, and Nonlocal Quantum Erasers. These, together with the experiments testing Leggett’s Non-Local Realistic Model, hint that it is Naïve Realism which is at stake. Yet, in the talk I will also discuss other possibilities like counterfactual definiteness, retroaction, or determinism. Future fundamental experiments will certainly explore states in higher-dimensional regions of Hilbert space hitherto unexplored. Such experiments are possible with photons by employing for example modes beyond Gaussians like orbital angular momentum states and Hermite-Gaussian modes or multimode states using multiport beam splitters. A specific example is the question of mutually unbiased bases in an Hilbert space of dimension d.

[1] Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 46, 19709-19713 (2010)