Deterministic Interpretation of the Malus Law and Correlation in Experiments with Entangled Photons

Abstract

This paper examines a local deterministic model of an experiment involving correlated photons. The experimental setup involves a source that emits two linearly polarized photons in each act, two two-channel analyzers, and detectors included in the coincidence scheme. The orientation angle of the photon polarization plane is a random variable with a uniform distribution, and it is the same for simultaneously emitted photons. The model presented here is a generalization of the “naive example of hidden variable theory” described in A. Aspect's article ‘Bell's Theorem: The Naive View of an Experimentalist. In our model, the outcome of the photon interaction with the analyzer (hit in one of the two channels) is uniquely determined by the angle between the photon polarization plane and the analyzer axis and is described by a step function. The difference in our model is that the step function contains a large number of segments of different lengths. The location and lengths of the segments are set so that the probability of a photon hitting a specific channel of an ideal analyzer, determined by averaging the outcomes over small neighborhoods of angles, approaches the Malus law when the maximum length of a segment decreases. This ensures that the classical model is self-consistent. When ideal analyzers are used, the absolute value of the correlation coefficient of detector readings mainly does not exceed the values from Aspect's ‘naive example’. However, when analyzers with absorption are used, the calculated correlations for some orientations of the analyzers exceed the quantum mechanical values. Key words: linear polarization of photons, Malus law, entangled photons, correlations, hidden parameters.