"Spooky action at a distance" or particle correlation at the time of their creation?

Question

In Bell test experiments, two particles that are a singlet are measured and are found to be correlated.

The correlation leads us to believe that they are somehow connected non-locally: the measurement of one particle results in affecting the other particle instantaneously.

My question is this: have we ruled out the possibility that there is no transmission of state and particles are actually created in such a way that their state seems to be transmitted to each other?

In other words, have we ruled out the possibility that the particles are created with all the properties required so as that when we measure them a correlation shows up?

Perhaps what we think of as state transmission is nothing more than particles created with such properties that when measured after their creation, they seem to affect each other, but they actually do not, they are simply created with specific properties.

I apologise for my poor language, I am neither a native English speaker nor a Physics student, just a curious mind.

Answer 1

Depending on how exactly you're thinking about your question, the answer is either yes or no.

have we ruled out the possibility that the particles are created with all the properties required so as that when we measure them a correlation shows up?

This is exactly how modern physicists see the issue. There is no "transmission of state", or indeed any transmission of any information after the particles are separated. They are simply created in a state such that certain measurements will later come out correlated.

On the other hand, one must be very careful when thinking about the nature of that state. It is tempting to think of it as a pair of boxes which contain a black sock and a white one, where finding a black sock in one implies that the other box has the white sock. This is exactly what a "local hidden variables" theory is, and they are provably not consistent with the full predictions of quantum mechanics.

To explain this, there are two routes. One can, as EPR did, insist upon realism, which forces a "spooky" nonlocal action onto the theory. Modern phycisists, roughly speaking, tend to throw away realism, to keep the locality. Simply put, the world is quantum, and purely classical thinking just won't cut it.

Answer 2

Perhaps what we think of as state transmission is nothing more than particles created with such properties that when measured after their creation, they seem to affect each other, but they actually do not, they are simply created with specific properties.

It is true that the solution of quantum mechanical equations are wave functions and they give the probability ,( for example for two particles,) of being detected at a specific space and time with a specific energy each. Presumably nature has solved the equations and knows the wave functions. These functions have mathematical correlations when it comes to conservation rules like spin, and flavor, and all those quantum numbers that have to be conserved. Before any measurement, the quantum numbers assigned to an individual particle are unknown, governed by the wavefunction probability distributions. Nevertheless these should obey conservation laws, i.e. keep the correlations imposed by the quantum numbers. Thus it should not be surprising if one starts with known spin 0 of a system and one measures a particle and it has the third component of spin +1/2 that we should know the other is with -1/2. That is the way we built up the table of particles and resonances after all, by looking after the quantum number balances.

So in my opinion yes there is an inherent correlation embedded in the wavefunctions when one is looking at conserved quantum numbers. Any probable space-time-energy function describing the system of two particles has no uncertainty on the quantum numbers. (It is similar with virtual particles in a Feynman diagram. There is no question that quantum numbers characterizing the particles are conserved it is only the mass that is mathematically described with an indeterminacy according to the integrals).

It is the same with macroscopic correlations. If John and David are twins and you are told that one of them lives in New York and the other in London, if you see David in London you instantly know that John is in New York.

Answer 3

In other words, have we ruled out the possibility that the particles are created with all the properties required so as that when we measure them a correlation shows up?

Bell-like experiments were never done, to my knowledge, with actual material particles such as atoms or nuclei. There were related experiments with light only. The correlations that were measured can be explained in many ways. The "spooky action at a distance" is a feature of some explanations (such as those based on assumption that wave function is some real physical object), not all of them (see stochastic electrodynamics and the work of Trevor Marshall and Emilio Santos that seems to explain the correlations with ordinary EM field only), and not necessarily present in the experiments.