Quantum entanglement: proposal for a new kind of experiment

This work aims at exploring whether the nonlocal correlations due to quantum entanglement could exist without nonlocal causation. This is done with the aid of a toy model which is based on a simple but decidedly unorthodox physical hypothesis: the nonlocally correlated outcomes of the wavefunction collapse of two entangled particles is driven by an exchange of information between them. Of course exchange of information between spacelike separated entities is forbidden in 3+1 space-time, thus we can wonder whether or not a way out could be found by invoking the existence of some hidden field propagating in an extra time dimension to make the mentioned exchange of information occurring at finite velocity through this extra dimension. Only the description of the wavefunction collapse would be affected by the existence of this extra-time dimension. The model proposed here is defined by borrowing Bohm-Bub’s proposal to describe the wavefunction collapse by means of nonlinear (non-unitary) dynamical equations and then elaborating this approach for an entangled system. The model so obtained is just speculative without any claim of being robust against any criticism, nevertheless, it satisfies the purpose of giving the possibility to the hypotheses formulated above to be verified experimentally; in fact, it makes the proposal of an experiment potentially interesting which would otherwise be immediately dismissed as manifestly trivial. The proposed experiment would consist of checking the possible violation of Bell’s inequality between two identical but independent systems under appropriate conditions. Beyond its theoretical interest, entanglement is a key topic in quantum computing and quantum technologies, so any attempt to gain a deeper understanding of it could be useful