Interferences, ghost images and other quantum correlations according to stochastic optics

There are an extensive variety of experiments in quantum optics that emphasize the non-local character of the coincidence measurements recorded by spatially separated photocounters. These are the cases of ghost image and other interference experiments based on correlated photons produced in, for instance, the process of parametric down-conversion or photon cascades. We propose to analyse some of these correlations in the light of stochastic optics, a local formalism based on classical electrodynamics with added background fluctuations that simulate the vacuum field of quantum electrodynamics, and raise the following question: can these experiments be used to distinguish between quantum entanglement and classical correlations?

► We analyse some quantum correlations in the light of stochastic optics. ► We study how vacuum fluctuations can rule quantum correlations. ► Many criteria cannot be considered a boundary between quantum and classical theories. ► Non-locality is a misused term in relation to many observed experiments.