An analysis is made of the results of a recent polarization correlation experiment by Bovino (unpublished) where about 60,000 data have been obtained. I assume that the state of the photon pairs produced in the source (a non-linear crystal) are in a (sligh
forwhichquantummechanicspredictsasimpleexpression,namelyVcos(2φ),onlyintheidealcase.
Agood tofthedataintoeqs.(10)and(11),withR0andVasfreeparameters,seemstobeanecessaryconditionforthecompatibilityoftheexperimentwithquantummechanics.However,evenifagood tisnotpossi-ble,stilltheexperimentmaybecompatiblewithquantummechanicsbecausethestateproducedinthesourcemaybedi erentfromeq.(3)and/orthereareadditionalnon-idealitiesnotincludedinthepreviousanalysis.Consequentlyprovinganempiricalviolationofquantummechanicsisextremelydi cultorimpossibleinactualexperiments.Similarlyrefutinglocalrealismisimpos-siblewhenevertheglobaldetectione ciencydoesnotsurpasseabout80%,awellknownfact.
Nevertheless,eveniftheBovinoexperiment[6]doesnotallowarigorousdiscriminationbetweenquantummechanicsandlocalrealism,interestinginformationmaybeobtainedbystudyingtheagreement,ordisagreement,ofthedatawithsomesimpleLHVmodelsdepartingbutslightlyfromthequantumpredictionseqs.(6)or(7).Thisstudywouldrequiretode neasimplefamilyofLHVmodelsandto ndwhetherthedataagreewitheitherthequantumpredictionsorthesaidsimpleLHVmodels.ConstructingLHVmodelsappropriateforacomparisonwiththequantumeqs.(6)or(7)isamostinterestingaimforthenearfuture,butfrommyexperienceImayguessthattheresultswillbeasfollows.Themodelpredictionswillbeoftheformgivenbyeq.(37)of[4],thatis(comparewitheqs.(11))
PLHV(φ)=
13π2sin(πη/2)
η22 2η+
cos(2ε)[π 2ε+tan(2ε)]=V(πη/2)2