Visibility, efficiency, and Bell violations in real Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiments

The violation of Bell's inequalities in Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiments has been demonstrated for photons and ions. In all experiments of this kind the relation between visibility, efficiency, and Bell violation is generally unknown. In this paper we show that simulations based on a local hidden variables models for entangled photons provide this information. It is established that these properties are closely related by the way, in which photons are detected after a polarizer beam splitter. On this basis we suggest controlled experiments which, for the first time, subject the superposition principle to experimental tests.