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arXiv:2103.05054

Comment on Wave-particle duality revisited: Neither wave nor particle

Luiz Carlos Ryff

Published Mar 8, 2021• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In a recent article Jan Sperling, Syamsundar De, Thomas Nitsche, Johannes Tiedau, Sonja Barkhofen, Benjamin Brecht, and Christine Silberhorn discuss the wave-particle duality using an experiment to demonstrate that "neither the wave nor the particle description is sufficient to predict the utcomes of quantum-optical experiments." I would like to draw your attention to two previous papers that discuss feasible experiments in which a photon does not seem to behave either as particle or as wave and make some brief considerations on the topic.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2103.05054

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In a recent article Jan Sperling, Syamsundar De, Thomas Nitsche, Johannes Tiedau, Sonja Barkhofen, Benjamin Brecht, and Christine Silberhorn discuss the wave-particle duality using an experiment to demonstrate that "neither the wave nor the particle description is sufficient to predict the utcomes of quantum-optical experiments." I would like to draw your attention to two previous papers that discuss feasible experiments in which a photon does not seem to behave either as particle or as wave and make some brief considerations on the topic.
A textbook interpretation of quantum physics is that quantum objects can be described in a particle or a wave picture, depending on the operations and measurements performed. Beyond this widely held believe, we demonstrate in this contribution that neither the wave nor the particle description is sufficient to predict the outcomes of quantum-optical experiments. To show this, we derive correlation-based criteria that have to be satisfied when either particles or waves are fed into our interferometer. Using squeezed light, it is then confirmed that measured correlations are incompatible with either picture. Thus, within one single experiment, it is proven that neither a wave nor a particle model explains the observed phenomena. Moreover, we formulate a relation of wave and particle representations to two incompatible notions of quantum coherence, a recently discovered resource for quantum information processing.For such an information-theoretic interpretation of our method, we certify the nonclassicality of coherent states - the quantum counterpart to classical waves - in the particle picture, complementing the known fact that photon states are nonclassical in the typically applied wave picture.
Here, the concept of a wave-particle duality is questioned. First, the experimental proofs existing, respectively, for particles and waves are examined. In the case of particles, no experimental evidence can be found which establishes them; it seems that particles have always been taken for granted. In the case of waves, considerable evidence has accumulated with results on diffraction, interference, and self-interference of larger and larger objects. Then an important remark is made concerning the fact that unlike particles, waves are not observation-dependent: waves existed before observation otherwise the patterns of diffraction or interference would not have been appearing; the wave nature does not depend on the making of a measurement, there is no measurement problem for waves. Consequently, since waves are not observation-dependent, if the objects are demonstrated to be waves, they are only waves. This fact, along with some other evidence, disagrees with the current interpretation of the Wheeler-type delayed-choice experiments, where the absence of interference is interpreted as a particle behavior. Finally, recent works regarding the de Broglie‐Bohm theory are presented, which lead to suggest a new wave-only version of this theory. It is concluded that a wave-only view might be worth considering instead of the wave-particle duality view which has prevailed so far.
The simplest but deepest questions of the philosophy of quantum mechanics are these: Are quantum systems waves, or are they particles? Are they both or are they neither? When light bounces an electron out of the surface of an alkali metal it behaves like a particle. Light carries momentum but also a punch. Just as there is no such thing as half a punch, so there is no such thing as half a quantum of light. On the other hand, the shadow formed on a screen by an object has soft edges, edges which get softer as the object is moved away from the screen. Light exhibits the phenomena of diffraction and interference and so is wavelike. This dual behaviour of light, and indeed of matter itself, is called wave-particle duality. The wave nature of a quantum system is reflected in wave mechanics which assigns a wave-function to the system. But the dual nature of light was noticed before Schrodinger developed the wave-mechanical formalism in 1926. In fact, it goes back at least as far as Einsteins explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905. Wave-particle duality is not something that arises within the quantum mechanical formalism. It is something which is expressed within it, and is something which is best discussed in terms of the paradoxes that quantum experiments force upon physics. In fact, the simplest and most immediately disturbing of the quantummechanical paradoxes arise out of wave-particle duality. We take the two-slit experiment and the delayed-choice experiment as examples.
Get PDF Email Share Share with Facebook Tweet This Post on reddit Share with LinkedIn Add to CiteULike Add to Mendeley Add to BibSonomy Get Citation Copy Citation Text J. Tiedau, E. Meyer-Scott, T. Nitsche, S. Barkhofen, C. Silberhorn, and T. J. Bartley, "Measuring single photons to bright light with a logarithmic optical detector," in Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, OSA Terchnical Digest (online) (Optica Publishing Group, 2018), paper FW3F.6. Export Citation BibTex Endnote (RIS) HTML Plain Text Citation alert Save article
Neither particle nor wave The information about the particle behaviour and the wave behaviour of light, presented in the preceding chapter, forms an extremely peculiar combination when taken together. And yet both are true: the experiments have been done as described, with the outcome as stated. There are experiments that tell us clearly that light consists of waves; there are others that tell us, equally clearly, that light consists of particles. Somehow we must find a description of light that incorporates both kinds of behaviour. This is a formidable undertaking, but there is one cheerful fact: in absolutely none of the experiments that have ever been done did the particle and the wave behaviours occur simultaneously . Because this is a fact that covers the entire history of physics, we feel justified in assuming that this is a general feature of Nature, and that there cannot ever be an experiment in which the wave and particle behaviours both occur at the same time. This is a generalization, for we can never expect to do all possible experiments. This generalizing hypothesis was first announced by Bohr, who had the wonderful combination of daring and insight to postulate that the observation of certain quantities excludes the simultaneous observation of certain others.