Do Quantum Nonlocal Correlations Imply Information Transfer?- A Gedanken Experiment

Abstract

We study a generalization of the original Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen thought experiment. It is essentially a delayed choice experiment as applied to entangled particles. The basic idea is: given two observers sharing position-momentum entangled photons, one party chooses whether she measures position or momentum of her photons after the particles leave the source. The other party should infer her action by checking for the absence or presence of characteristic interference patterns after subjecting his particles to certain optical pre-processing. An occurance of apparent signaling is attributed to the difficulty in treating single photons simultaneously at a quantum mechanical and quantum electrodynamic level, as required by the experiment, and points to the need for a careful study of an aspect of the foundations of quantum mechanics and electrodynamics.

4 pages text + 1 figure; REVteX; Discussion part rewritten with corresponding changes to abstract & title; Modified/alternate version of the Gedanken experiment in quant-ph/9904075