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Zeitschrift für Naturforschung A

Young's Experiment, Schrödinger's Spread and Spontaneous Intrinsic Decoherence

R. Bonifacio, Stefano Olivares

Published Feb 1, 2001• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract The two slits interference pattern for single particle is revisited, showing its strict relation to the free particle Schrödinger’s spread and describing the optical analogy. We explicitly show the possibility that spontaneous intrinsic decoherence (SID) can destroy interference pattern and that decoherence becomes stronger at the macroscopic limit.

DOI
10.1515/zna-2001-0108

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Abstract The two slits interference pattern for single particle is revisited, showing its strict relation to the free particle Schrödinger’s spread and describing the optical analogy. We explicitly show the possibility that spontaneous intrinsic decoherence (SID) can destroy interference pattern and that decoherence becomes stronger at the macroscopic limit.
We discuss the single-particle Young interference experiment in position space, showing its close relation with the time-dependent Schrodinger spread. In the two-slit case there is always a maximum at the centre of the screen. Here we demonstrate that, with three slits, one can have zero intensity (at the centre) for discrete values of the spacing between the slits and of the distance of the screen. Finally, we show the possibility that spontaneous intrinsic decoherence destroys the interference pattern and that decoherence becomes stronger at the macroscopic limit.
A coherent superposition of two Gaussian wavepackets, which freely evolves in time, gives rise to an interference pattern similar to that of the single-particle double-slit Young's experiment. In this paper we show that fringe visibility can be reduced by spontaneous decoherence, which can also destroy quantum coherence when interaction between a system and its surroundings can be neglected. This decoherence is due to fluctuations in the evolution time and, in general, cannot be achieved when simple classical averages are considered. We compare our theoretical results with a C 60 fullerenes interference experiment, where thermal decoherence is not relevant, but the fringe visibility is actually reduced.
Quantum interference is a challenging phenomenon in quantum optics. According to this principle of superposition of quantum mechanics, elementary particles such as photon can not only be in more than one place at a given time, but that an individual particle can cross its own trajectory and interfere with the direction of its path. Thomas Young devised the double slit experiment to prove that light consisted of waves. Analysis of the double slit experiment and the interference pattern indicates that each photon not only goes through both the slits simultaneously, but traverses every possible trajectory on the way to the target, not just in theory, but in fact. In the present work we have analysed the situation in terms of quantum superposition and Schrodinger cat states in quantum optics. The nature of photon in this analysis is examined
This experiment explores the quantum phenomenon known as the Quantum Eraser, using a variation of Young’s Double Slit experiment. Young’s Double Slit experiment demonstrates that light acts as a wave by creating an interference pattern when diffracted through two slits. If one measures which of the two slits the photons pass through, then the interference pattern is replaced by a single bright spot, as would be expected for particle-like behaviour. The “Quantum Eraser” eliminates the measurement on the photons, thereby reintroducing the interference pattern observed in Young’s original experiment. The experiment’s first stage saw Young’s Double Slit experiment recreated and an interference pattern was observed. Upon adding two orthogonally polarized filters, the photon’s path was measured, and the interference pattern was removed. By then adding a third filter which was polarized 45O relative to both other polarisers, the interference pattern was somewhat restored. For each experiment, the heights of the peaks in the interference patterns were compared to each other to examine the quality of the reproduced interference pattern based on the original double slit interference pattern. This comparison gave a quantitative result that demonstrated that the Quantum Eraser was able to restore the interference pattern to within 5 standard errors, thereby exemplifying the effect that changing the measurement conditions affects the final measurement.