Quantum mechanics vs relativity: an experimental test of the structure of spacetime

Abstract

We have performed an experimental test under the conditions of which quantum mechanics predicts a spatially-discontinuous single-particle transport. The transport is beyond the relativistic paradigm of movement in Cartesian space and therefore may well be nonlocal. Our test has demonstrated that such transport does exist. This fact opens the door for realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics insofar as the requirement of Lorentz invariance appears inapplicable to any version of quantum theory. Moreover, as quantum mechanics proposes a particle dynamics beyond the relativity, it automatically requires an adequate "quantum" concept of spacetime, for which the relativistic concept is only a limiting case. The quantum concept allows absolute simultaneity and hence revives the notion of absolute time. It also goes beyond the relativistic curvilinear Cartesian order of space to account for quantum phenomena such as the discontinuity and the nonlocality in the spirit of Bohm's concept of the implicate order.