title: Experimental test of the no-go theorem for continuous ψ-epistemic models.
abstract: Quantum states are the key mathematical objects in quantum theory; however, there is still much debate concerning what a quantum state truly represents. One such century-old debate is whether a quantum state is ontic or epistemic. Recently, a no-go theorem was proposed, stating that the continuous ψ-epistemic models cannot reproduce the measurement statistic of quantum states. Here we experimentally test this theorem with high-dimensional single photon quantum states without additional assumptions except for the fair-sampling assumption. Our experimental results reproduce the prediction of quantum theory and support the no-go theorem.
authors.affiliation: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Materials, School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China.
authors.forename: Kai-Yu
authors.initials: KY
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.affiliation: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Materials, School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China.
authors.forename: Xin-Ding
authors.initials: XD
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Materials, School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China.
authors.forename: Guang-Zhou
authors.initials: GZ
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Materials, School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China.
authors.forename: Bao-Quan
authors.initials: BQ
authors.lastname: Ai
authors.affiliation: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Materials, School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Materials, School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China.|National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, School of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Shi-Liang
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Zhu