Bell's inequalities with realistic noise for polarization-entangled photons

Abstract

Contrary to the usual assumption that the experimental preparation of pure entangled states can be described by mixed states due to white noise, a more realistic description for polarization-entangled states produced by parametric down-conversion is that they are mixed states due to decoherence in a preferred polarization basis. This distinction between white and colored noise is crucial when we look for maximal violations of Bell's inequalities for two-qubit and two-qutrit entangled states. We find that violations of Bell's inequalities with realistic noise for polarization-entangled photons are extremely robust for colored noise, whereas this is not the case for white noise. In addition, we study the difference between white and colored noise for maximal violations of Bell's inequalities for three- and four-qubit entangled states. © 2005 The American Physical Society.