Correlation functions in EPR-type experiments: the low-detection- efficiency loophole

Abstract

In this paper we derive a general approach using correlation functions for interpreting the results of measurements on two-particle entangled states. In our analysis we explicitly take into account the detector efficiency. We show that all Bell-type inequalities have bounds depending on both the losses in the apparatus and the supplementary assumptions about the statistical distribution of the losses themselves. Moreover, our approach enables us to include in the causal and local theory the same assumptions as used in the quantum mechanical analysis of an experiment, and to deduce the inequality which has to be satisfied by any local realistic model incorporating these assumptions. We show that, although the most recent experiments on Bell's inequality can be considered to be a remarkable step in the direction of testing quantum mechanics predictions, the loophole of the low quantum efficiency of the detector is not yet solved. In fact, using the quantum mechanical assumption of random nondetection in the causal and local approach, we deduce a generalized Bell-type inequality which includes no-count events and whose upper bound can be violated by the quantum mechanical predictions only if the detector quantum efficiency is >0.811.