Wave–particle superposition

Paul O’Hara, András Kovács, Giorgio Vassallo

Hyunhwan Choi

An attempt to explain the motion of particle is made in terms of a wave superposition. There is no localized superposition of waves that is supposed to be a single particle apart from other wave superposition, but there are a bunch of wave packets, which appears to be particle within a wave superposition that is made of individual waves around the space. There are countless number of waves that become a wave superposition, and the position of each wave packet is determined by the relative distance between packets, which is a superposition state. When a wave superposition interfere with a individual wave, this distance changes, and the position of each wave packet is fixed , which is called a measurement. With respect to the position of a particle, thus the particle is placed at the different position simultaneously in the superposition state. A change of the relative distance between wave packets appears to be a motion of particle, which is interpreted as a force acting on a particle. The photo-electric effect is explained in the same way, by which a superposition of charge waves interferes with the light wave, which increases the relative distance of wave packets in the atom, and it brings the outermost wave packet apart from the atom. The resistance in conductor is also understood by the wave interference with a superposition of charge waves residing in the conductor.

Wei Zhang, Dong-Sheng Ding, Ming‐Xin Dong +4 more

Wave-particle duality is the most essential nature of light, and the fact that the detection apparatus determines the observed wave or particle behavior is one of the most counterintuitive features of quantum mechanics. Recent progress in this direction has revealed novel and peculiar phenomena of photonic wave-particle morphing and wave-particle superposition, which provide a deep understanding of the wave-particle duality for photons. However, it remains an open question whether this new conception can be extended to a more complex physical system, such as an atomic system. We here report an experimental realization of the wave-particle superposition of distinct atomic spin excitations in a cold atomic ensemble by using multiplexed quantum memory. The quantum behavior of wave-particle superposition for matter is observed and verified. Our scheme further provides a benchmark understanding of the wave-particle duality in matter systems.

Chen Yang

Abstract In many texts, the transition from classical mechanics to quantum mechanics is achieved by substituting the action for the phase angle. The paper presents a different approach to show some connections between classical and quantum mechanics for a single particle for an audience at graduate and postgraduate levels. Firstly, it is shown that a wave equation of action can be derived under the free particle condition and the Legendre transform. The wave-like solutions of the action, Hamiltonian and momentum of the free particle are presented. Using the discrete approximation, the equation of motion of a single particle, in scalar potential field, is obtained in a similar form to Schrödinger’s equation. The rest of the paper discusses the propagation, superposition of the wave-like dynamic variables and their connections to quantum mechanics. The superposition of the variables of a particle is generally distinct from the superposition of classical waves (e.g. acoustics). The quantum superposition provides a self-consistent interpretation of the wave-like solutions of the variables. Connections between the classical and quantum relations for corresponding variables are observed from the one-to-one comparisons.