Bell's Inequalities and Density Matrices: Revealing “Hidden” Nonlocality

Standard Bell inequalities apply to correlations arising when two or more macroscopically separated systems are each subjected to a single ideal measurement. While these inequalities demonstrate that quantum mechanics and local hidden variable theories yield incompatible predictions for pure states, they fail for mixed states: For mixed states, correlations arising from a single ideal measurement on each system may obey standard Bell inequalities, yet when each system is subjected to a sequence of ideal measurements the correlations are nonlocal. For some situations even this last procedure fails, and we must consider more complex (“nonideal”) measurements.