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I haven't seen a paper which answers this particular question, maybe someone else has... (I have scanned the preprint archive but to no avail so far).
Most Bell tests use polarizing beam splitters (PBS) to check photons at Alice and Bob. Typical are 2 detectors at Alice and 2 at Bob. Results of all 4 are correlated and analyzed. You would normally say the entanglement ends once we know which way the photon goes through the beam splitter.
What if we takes the 2 beams at Alice and merge them back very precisely together again? I.e. such that it is no longer possible to tell which path the photon took through the PBS. I would expect that the resultant reconstructed beam (Alice) is still entangled with Bob. If you tested Alice and Bob at this point, I would expect us to see the perfect correlations and the Bell inequality violations per usual. Is this correct?
So when does the entanglement actually end? If what I am saying is right, the PBS is not actually capable of ending the entanglement itself. Instead, it is the detection of the photon - and what we know about it at that point - which ends the entanglement. I believe this is fully consistent with the QM prediction.
Most Bell tests use polarizing beam splitters (PBS) to check photons at Alice and Bob. Typical are 2 detectors at Alice and 2 at Bob. Results of all 4 are correlated and analyzed. You would normally say the entanglement ends once we know which way the photon goes through the beam splitter.
What if we takes the 2 beams at Alice and merge them back very precisely together again? I.e. such that it is no longer possible to tell which path the photon took through the PBS. I would expect that the resultant reconstructed beam (Alice) is still entangled with Bob. If you tested Alice and Bob at this point, I would expect us to see the perfect correlations and the Bell inequality violations per usual. Is this correct?
So when does the entanglement actually end? If what I am saying is right, the PBS is not actually capable of ending the entanglement itself. Instead, it is the detection of the photon - and what we know about it at that point - which ends the entanglement. I believe this is fully consistent with the QM prediction.