Bell nonlocality and the reality of the quantum wave function

Abstract

Status of quantum wavefunction is one of the most debated issues in quantum foundations -- whether it corresponds directly to the reality or just represents knowledge or information about some aspect of reality. In this letter we propose a {\it $\psi$-ontology} theorem that excludes a class of ontological explanations where quantum wavefunction is treated as mere information. Our result, unlike the acclaimed Pusey-Barrett-Rudolph's theorem, does not presume the absence of holistic ontological properties for product quantum preparations. At the core of our derivation we utilize the seminal no-go result by John S. Bell that rules out any local realistic world view for quantum theory. We show that the observed phenomenon of quantum nonlocality cannot be incorporated in a class of $\psi$-epistemic models. Using the well known Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality we obtain a threshold bound on the degree of epistemicity above which the ontological models are not compatible with quantum statistics.