Local hidden-variable models for entangled quantum states

While entanglement and violation of Bell inequalities were initially thought to be equivalent quantum phenomena, we now have different examples of entangled states whose correlations can be described by local hidden-variable models and, therefore, do not violate any of the Bell inequalities. We provide an up-to-date overview of the existing literature regarding local hidden-variable models for entangled quantum states, in both the bipartite and multipartite cases, and discuss some of the most relevant open questions in this context. Our review covers twenty five years of this line of research, beginning with the seminal work by Werner (1989 Phys. Rev. A 40 8), which provided the first example of an entangled state with a local model. Werner's work, in turn, appeared twenty five years after the seminal work by Bell (1964 Physics 1 195), about the impossibility of recovering the predictions of quantum mechanics using a local hidden-variable theory.