Violation of Leggett inequalities in orbital angular momentum subspaces

Romero, J., Leach, J., Jack, B., Barnett, S.M. , Padgett, M. and Franke-Arnold, S. (2010) Violation of Leggett inequalities in orbital angular momentum subspaces. New Journal of Physics, 12(12), 123007. (doi: 10.1088/1367-2630/12/12/123007)

Abstract

We report an experimental test of Leggett's non-local hidden variable theory in an orbital angular momentum (OAM) state space of light. We show that the correlations we observe are in conflict with Leggett's model, thus excluding a particular class of non-local hidden variable theories for the first time in a non-polarization state space. It is known that the violation of the Leggett inequality becomes stronger as more detection settings are used. The required measurements become feasible in an OAM subspace, and we demonstrate this by testing the inequality using three and four settings. We observe excellent agreement with quantum predictions and a violation of five and six standard deviations, respectively, compared to Leggett's non-local hidden variable theory.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Padgett, Professor Miles and Franke-Arnold, Professor Sonja and Leach, Mr Jonathan and Barnett, Professor Stephen and Romero, Dr Jacqui
• Authors: Romero, J., Leach, J., Jack, B., Barnett, S.M., Padgett, M., and Franke-Arnold, S.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
• Journal Name: New Journal of Physics
• Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd.
• ISSN: 1367-2630
• ISSN (Online): 1367-2630
• Published Online: 07 December 2010
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2010 Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd.
• First Published: First published in New Journal of Physics 12 (12): 123007
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
47427	1	Full-field quantum imaging	Miles Padgett	Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)	EP/G011656/1	Physics and Astronomy