A modified version of Young's experiment by Shahriar Afshar indirectly reveals the presence of a fully articulated interference pattern prior to the post-selection of a particle in a "which-slit" basis. While this experiment does not constitute a violation of Bohr's Complementarity Principle as claimed by Afshar, both he and many of his critics incorrectly assume that a commonly used relationship between visibility parameter V and "which-way" parameter K has crucial relevance to his experiment. It is argued here that this relationship does not apply to this experimental situation and that it is wrong to make any use of it in support of claims for or against the bearing of this experiment on Complementarity.
Shahriar S. Afshar claimed that his 2007 modified version of the double-slit experiment violates complementarity [1]. He makes two modifications to the standard double-slit experiment. First, he adds a wire grid that is placed in between the slits and the screen at locations of interference minima. The second modification is to place a converging lens just after the wire grid. The idea is that the wire grid implies the existence of interference minima(wave-like behavior), while the lens can simultaneously obtain which-way information (particle-like behavior). More recently, John G. Cramer [2] …
The assertion that an experiment by Afshar et al. demonstrates violation of Bohr's Principle of Complementarity is based on the faulty assumption that which-way information in a double-slit interference experiment can be retroactively determined from a future measurement.
The elements of reality coined by Einstein, Podoslky, and Rosen promoted a series of fundamental discussions involving the notion of quantum correlations and physical realism. The superposition principle applied in the double-slit experiment with matter waves highlights the need for a critical review of the adoption of physical realism in the quantum realm. In this work, we employ a measure of physical irrealism and consider an initial contractive state in the double-slit setup for which position and momentum variables of a single particle are initially correlated. We investigate how the behav…
We study the observation of exotic looped trajectories in double-slit experiments with matter waves. We consider the relative intensity at $x=0$ as a function of the time-of-flight from the double-slit to the screen inside the interferometer. This allows us to define a fringe visibility associated to the contribution to the interference pattern given by exotic lopped trajectories. We demonstrate that the Sorkin parameter is given in terms of this visibility and of the axial phases which include the Gouy phase. We verify how this parameter can be obtained by measuring the relative intensity at …
Illustration of quantum complementarity using single photons interfering on a grating
最近由S. S. Afshar等人的理论被解释为违反了玻尔的互补原理，即干涉可见度和双光路干涉仪中的哪一路信息之间的互补原理。我们复制了这个实验，使用真正的单光子脉冲在一个双路波前分裂干涉仪中传播，该干涉仪是用菲涅耳双棱镜实现的，然后是一个具有可调透射狭缝的光栅。发现用可分辨性参数D表征的干涉可见度V和哪条路径信息的测量值服从互补关系V^2+D^2=<1。这一结果表明，实验可以完美地解释的量子力学的哥本哈根解释。
We probe the principle of complementarity by performing a double-slit experiment based on entangled photons created by spontaneous parametric down-conversion from a pump mode in a TEM01-mode. Our setup brings out the need for a careful selection of the signal-idler photon pairs for our study of visibility and distinguishability. Indeed, when the signal photons interfering at the double-slit belong to this double-hump mode we obtain almost perfect visibility of the interference fringes and no "which-slit" information is available. However, when we break the symmetry between the two maxima of th…
Making a "which-way" measurement (WWM) to identify which slit a particle goes through in a double-slit apparatus will reduce the visibility of interference fringes. There has been a long-standing controversy over whether this can be attributed to an uncontrollable momentum transfer. To date, no experiment has characterised the momentum change in a way that relates quantitatively to the loss of visibility. Here, by reconstructing the Bohmian trajectories of single photons, we experimentally obtain the distribution of momentum change, which is observed to be not a momentum kick that occurs at th…
We discuss a parameter estimation problem using quantum decoherece in the double-slit interferometer. We consider a particle coupled to a massive scalar field after the particle passing through the double slit and solve the dynamics non-perturbatively for the coupling by the WKB approximation. This allows us to analyze the estimation problem which cannot be treated by master equation used in the research of quantum probe. In this model, the scalar field reduces the interference fringes of the particle and the fringe pattern depends on the field mass and coupling. To evaluate the contrast and t…
Fringe visibility and which-way information in Young's double slit experiments with light scattered from single atoms
Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）；Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院电子研究实验室）；MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms（麻省理工学院-哈佛超冷原子中心）
In an asymmetric multislit interference experiment, a quanton is more likely to pass through certain slits than some others. In such a situation one may be able to predict which slit a quanton is more likely to go through, even without using any path-detecting device. This allows one to talk of path predictability. It has been shown earlier that for a two-slit interference, the predictability and fringe visibility are constrained by the inequality $P^2+V^2\le 1$. Generalizing this relation to the case of more than two slits is still an unsolved problem. A new definition for predictability for …
Bohr's principle of complementarity, in the context of a two-slit interference experiment, is understood as the quantitative measures of wave and particle natures following a duality relation ${\mathcal D}^2+{\mathcal V}^2 \le 1$. Here ${\mathcal D}$ is a measure of distinguishability of the two paths, and ${\mathcal V}$ is the visibility of interference. It is shown that such a relation can be formulated for $N-$slit or $N-$path interference too, with the proviso that the wave nature is characterized by a measure of {\em coherence} (${\mathcal C}$). This new relation, ${\mathcal D}^2+{\mathca…
Famous double-slit or double-path experiments, implemented in a Young's or Mach-Zehnder interferometer, have confirmed the dual nature of quantum matter, When a stream of photons, neutrons, atoms, or molecules, passes through two slits, either wave-like interference fringes build up on a screen, or particle-like which-path distribution can be ascertained. These quantum objects exhibit both wave and particle properties but exclusively, depending on the way they are measured. In an equivalent Mach-Zehnder configuration, the object displays either wave or particle nature in the presence or absenc…
We study how single- and double-slit interference patterns fall in the presence of gravity. First, we demonstrate that universality of free fall still holds in this case, i.e., interference patterns fall just like classical objects. Next, we explore lowest order relativistic effects in the Newtonian regime by employing a recent quantum formalism which treats mass as an operator. This leads to interactions between non-degenerate internal degrees of freedom (like spin in an external magnetic field) and external degrees of freedom (like position). Based on these effects, we present an unusual phe…
Using angular position-orbital angular momentum entangled photons, we propose an experiment to generate maximally entangled states of $D$-dimensional quantum systems, the so called qudits, by exploiting correlations of parametric down-converted photons. Angular diffraction masks containing $N$-slits in the arms of each twin photon define a qudit space of dimension $N^2$, spanned by the alternative pathways of the photons. Due to phase-matching conditions, the twin photons will pass only by symmetrically opposite angular slits, generating maximally entangled states between these different paths…
