On pair annihilation and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox

Abstract

Discussion is given to the experimental facts that are associated with ‘pair annihilation’, as a real example, rather than a gedanken experiment, to illustrate the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. It is shown how the paradox disappears in a nonlinear relativistically covariant spinor field theory of this author, which takes thesingle interaction, rather thanmany free particles, as the elementary entity. In this theory there is no actual annihilation of matter. Rather, the observed facts that are conventionally interpreted as ‘pair annihilation’ arederived from an exact solution of the nonlinear field equations for the interacting pair in a particular deeply bound state. This solution reveals the observed facts, including the energy separation of 2m from the asymptotic state where the particles can be assumed to be (almost) free, and the prediction of two distinguishable currents whose phases are correlated by a 90° difference and are polarized in a common plane that is perpendicular to the direction of propagation of interaction with a detecting apparatus. The paradox disappears essentially because of the rejection by this theory (in principle and in the exact mathematical formalism) of anyphysical description in terms of truly uncoupled partial systems.