Is the Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Complete? Proposed Resolution of the EPR Puzzle

Abstract

The question whether the quantum mechanical description of physical reality could be considered complete was asked in 1935 by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen. Subsequent debates and developments lead to the notion that all descriptions that correctly reproduce the correlations exhibited by entangled multiparticle systems involve nonlocality. We show that the correct quantum correlations are reproduced under the assumption of strict locality if calculated directly from local probability amplitudes. The correlation is encoded in the phase coherence at source, and does not require any nonlocal influence during quantum measurements. For unmeasured systems, physical reality is at the level of internal phases instead of at the level of eigenvalues. The results imply that a measurement on one particle does not collapse the companion particle in an entangled system to a definite state. There is experimental proof for this from Popper''s experiment. This new framework of local description is proposed as the resolution of the EPR puzzle. Our analysis asserts that the quantum mechanical description can be made complete by correctly combining the aspects of locality, wave-particle unity, and physical reality at the level of internal phases.