The commonly used “practical” Bell inequalities for quantum optical fields, which use intensities as the observables, are derivable only if specific additional assumptions hold. This limits the range of local hidden variable theories, which are invalidated by their violation. We present alternative Bell inequalities, which do not suffer from any (theoretical) loophole. The inequalities are for correlations of averaged products of local rates. By rates we mean ratios of the measured intensity in the given local output channel to the total local measured intensity, in the given run of the experiment. Bell inequalities of this type detect entanglement in situations in which the “practical” ones fail. Thus, we have full consistency with Bell's theorem, and better device-independent entanglement indicators. Strongly driven type-II parametric down conversion (bright squeezed vacuum) is our working example. The approach can be used to modify many types of standard Bell inequalities, to the case of undefined particle numbers. The rule is to replace the usual probabilities by rates.

• Received 2 November 2015
• Revised 8 March 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.94.020102