Quantum Non-Locality and the CMB: What Experiments Say

Abstract

“Non-locality is most naturally incorporated into a theory in which there is a special frame of reference. One possible candidate for this special frame of reference is the one in which the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is isotropic. However, other than the fact that a realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics requires a preferred frame and the CMB provides us with one, there is no readily apparent reason why the two should be linked” (L. Hardy). Starting from this remark, we first argue that, given the present view of the vacuum, the basic tenets of Quantum Field Theory cannot guarantee that Einstein Special Relativity, with no preferred frame, is the physically realized version of relativity. Then, to try to understand the nature of the hypothetical preferred Σ−frame, we consider the so-called ether drift experiments, those precise optical measurements that try to detect, in the laboratory, a small angular dependence of the two-way velocity of light and then to correlate this angular dependence with the direct CMB observations with satellites in space. By considering all experiments performed so far, from Michelson–Morley to the present experiments with optical resonators, and analyzing the small observed residuals in a modern theoretical framework, the long-sought Σ−frame tight to the CMB naturally emerges. Finally, if quantum non-locality reflects some effect propagating at vastly superluminal speed vQI→∞, its ultimate origin could be hidden somewhere in the infinite speed cs→∞ of vacuum density fluctuations.