Potential for Quantum-Mechanical Tests Using Quasars, as Illuminated by Gemini Archival Data

Abstract

There has been recent interest in quantum-mechanical tests aided by distant quasars. For two quasars of sufficient redshift at opposite directions on the sky, light-travel-time arguments can assure the acausality of their photons. And if those photons are used to set parameters in an Earth-based apparatus, coincidence cannot be due to their communication, closing the so-called "freedom of choice" loophole in the experiment. But this assumes no other interference right up to detection, including correlated instrumental errors, which must be carefully constrained. The Gemini North and South Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) twins can simultaneously view pairs of quasars up to 180 degrees apart on the sky, and already provide a significant baseline record to investigate this. All GMOS broadband imaging frames were searched to find those that happen to contain a known quasar together with a suitable comparison star. Although individual photometry can be noisy among these 0.1 < z < 6 sources, in the aggregate, average site conditions and their relative photometric zeropoints are well characterized. The resulting dataset constitutes about 2 million correlated quasar-observation pairs over 14 years. A preliminary analysis of that is presented, with the intriguing result that paired-flux differences across the whole sky weakly deviate from flatness, to the limit consistent with Bell's Theorem. Can Gemini be used to prove the "spooky action at a distance" expected of quantum mechanics? Some prospects for future work and a more definitive test are considered.

3 pages, 3 figures, presented at Science and Evolution of Gemini Observatory, 22-26 July 2018, San Francisco, U.S.A