Principle of our EPR Experiment

Due to experimental inadequacies in all previous experimental work, a final definitive answer to the question of locality, the Bell inequalities and the EPR paradox has not yet been obtained. The two loopholes remaining are the detection efficiency loophole and the rigorous enforcement of the locality condition. I am working on a test of the Bell inequalities based on atoms. This project is performed in collaboration with Dr. Fry (original concept). It will be the first test of the Bell inequalities based on atoms and is a direct realization of Bohm's version of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen. Since atoms move much more slowly than photons, the lifetime of the entangled state will be much longer, several orders of magnitude longer than in previous experiments. Due to its unique features, the experiment will close the previously mentioned loopholes associated with all previous tests of the Bell inequalities. Besides its important fundamental aspects the experiment offers some interesting technical challenges as well.