Clarifying the assumptions underlying Bell tests

In the Nature Communications paper, Cabello and collaborators elaborate on how outcomes from complex Bell experiments can constrain the possible causal explanations.

What do quantum measurements on entangled quantum states have to do with free will? In a recently published paper in journal Nature Communications, FoQaCiA PI Adán Cabello (Seville) and colleagues Carlos Vieira and Ravishankar Ramanathan from the University of Hong Kong argue that sufficiently complex Bell tests can put bounds on suitably defined assumptions about free will and determinism of measurement outcomes.  Some of these assumptions are sometimes called “free will”, even though they may differ from definitions of free will often discussed by philosophers. The three researchers motivate more complex Bell nonlocality experiments capable of ruling out some of the simplest explanations for the data.

The work has drawn attention from the press, with a report published in New Scientist, and very recently a video review by physicist, and popular science blogger Sabine Hossenfelder. This FoQaCiA-supported work is a step towards a better understanding of the precise assumptions underlying Bell tests, and is a motivation for new Bell test experiments in a high complexity regime.