European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields (Nov 2024)

Can Bell inequalities be tested via scattering cross-section at colliders ?

  • Song Li,
  • Wei Shen,
  • Jin Min Yang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13584-x
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 84, no. 11
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Abstract In current studies for testing Bell inequalities at colliders, the reconstruction of spin correlations from scattering cross-sections relies on the bilinear form of the spin correlations, but not all local hidden variable models (LHVMs) have such a property. To demonstrate that a general LHVM cannot be rule out via scattering cross-section data, we propose a specific LHVM, which can exactly duplicate the same scattering cross-section for particle production and decay as the standard quantum theory, making it indistinguishable at colliders in principle. Despite of this, we find that reconstructing spin correlations through scattering cross-sections can still exclude a broad class of LHVMs, e.g., those models employing classical spin correlations as a surrogate for quantum spin correlations.