Bell’s theory with no locality assumption

Abstract

We prove versions of the Bell and the GHZ theorems that do not assume locality but only the effect after cause principle (EACP) according to which for any Lorentz observer the value of an observable cannot change because of an event that happens after the observable is measured. We show that the EACP is strictly weaker than locality. As a consequence of our results, locality cannot be considered as the common cause of the contradictions obtained in all versions of Bell’s theory. All versions of Bell’s theorem assume weak realism according to which the value of an observable is well defined whenever the measurement could be made and some measurement is made. As a consequence of our results, weak realism becomes the only hypothesis common to the contradictions obtained in all versions of Bell’s theory. Usually, one avoids these contradictions by assuming non-locality; this would not help in our case since we do not assume locality. This work indicates that it is weak realism, not locality, that needs to be negated to avoid contradictions in microscopic physics, at least if one refuses as false the de Broglie-Bohm hidden variable theory because of its essential violation of Lorentz invariance.