Paper detail

Local toy-model theory with ontic correlated states of composite systems

We propose a toy-model theory, that mimics various characteristic features of quantum mechanics. Unlike the toy-models previously studied in the literature, our toy-model allows for an observer to have a full knowledge of a system's real (ontic) state. This is achieved by introducing domains of disjointness, that is by allowing ontic states to be "non-orthogonal". The observer can perform tests which allow her to distinguish between the states in a single domain of disjointness, but not between all ontic states at once. The consequence of this assumption is that the ontic picture is extended to include joint states of two or more systems. This effectively amounts to emergence of entanglement in the model. We argue that these features, albeit being a "non-classical" element in the theory, support the view that quantum-mechanical states are ontic states.