Measurements on the reality of the wavefunction

Abstract

Quantum mechanics is an outstandingly successful description of nature, underpinning fields from biology through chemistry to physics. At its heart is the quantum wavefunction, the central tool for describing quantum systems. Yet it is still unclear what the wavefunction actually is: does it merely represent our limited knowledge of a system, or is it in direct correspondence to reality? Recent no-go theorems argued that if there was any objective reality, then the wavefunction must be real. However, that conclusion relied on debatable assumptions. Here we follow a different approach without these assumptions and experimentally bound the degree to which knowledge interpretations can explain quantum phenomena. Using single photons, we find that no knowledge interpretation can fully explain the limited distinguishability of non-orthogonal quantum states in three and four dimensions. Assuming that a notion of objective reality exists, our results thus strengthen the view that the wavefunction should directly correspond to this reality.