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Linear and Circular Photon Polarization States in the Mach-Zehnder Interference Experiment

Jean Louis Van Belle

Published Nov 1, 2018• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

This paper continues to explore a possible physical interpretation of the wavefunction but with a focus on the wavefunction(s) of a single photon in the Mach-Zehnder experiment. It focuses, in particular, on how one might visualize linear and circular polarization states for photon waves, and how beam splitters may or may not split a circular polarization state into two independent linear polarization states or – vice versa – recombine two linear polarization states into one circular state. As such, it attempts to provide a more refined approach to the rather crude hidden-variable theory for explaining quantum-mechanical interference that was presented in a previous paper (http://vixra.org/pdf/1811.0005v1.pdf). The outcome is the same, however: the theory does not work. Hence, this paper again shows the limit of such physical interpretations, thereby confirming the intuition behind Bell’s Theorem.

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This paper continues to explore a possible physical interpretation of the wavefunction but with a focus on the wavefunction(s) of a single photon in the Mach-Zehnder experiment. It focuses, in particular, on how one might visualize linear and circular polarization states for photon waves, and how beam splitters may or may not split a circular polarization state into two independent linear polarization states or – vice versa – recombine two linear polarization states into one circular state. As such, it attempts to provide a more refined approach to the rather crude hidden-variable theory for explaining quantum-mechanical interference that was presented in a previous paper (http://vixra.org/pdf/1811.0005v1.pdf). The outcome is the same, however: the theory does not work. Hence, this paper again shows the limit of such physical interpretations, thereby confirming the intuition behind Bell’s Theorem.
Polarized photons have properties that can be explained, among others, by their indistinguishability. This includes superposition and entanglement. We propose that the superposition state can be understood as the entirety of all mixtures of indistinguishable perpendicularly polarized photon beams. The photon beams, whose polarization correspond to the position of the polarizer, are filtered out by selection using a polarizer. There are no nonlocal effects with the entangled photons. This is because the physical states of the photons are defined before each measurement. The model replicates the predictions of quantum mechanics for entangled photons and also explains entanglement swapping and teleportation. The superposition of indistinguishable photon beams can be experimentally demonstrated using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. This explains how the polarization of the input state reappears at the output of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer.
The production of maxima and minima by the superposition of two or more light signals provides fundamental support for the wave nature of light. This result is based on the study of wave interference phenomena which remains the only approach to explain the production of those maxima and minima. In a system that is prepared to work with only one photon at a time, any detector can signal only one or zero. In 1986, a rigorously controlled experiment was designed by Grangier, G. Roger, and A. Aspect, [Europhys Lett. 1(4), p. 173, 1986] that guaranteed a single-photon beam. The explanation of the experimental results implied the interference of the wave function of a single-photon with itself. Thus, the explanation of interference that is accepted for an ensemble of photons was assumed to be valid for a single photon. In this study, we prepare a Mach-Zehnder interferometer using the same type of beam splitters used by Grangier et al. to test the assumption mentioned above. Our results allow us to explain the results of Grangier et al. because of the interaction between light and the beam splitters. Our results also verify that their wave interpretation of the results is not valid. Here, we present the essential findings of the extensive experimental evidence that supports our ideas.
Abstract The superposition states, allowed by quantum theory, are dramatically diverse with respect to classical states and represent the true quantum states. By using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer we experimentally show how a single photon in a polarization superposition state can produce interference. The experimental setup includes a strongly attenuated laser source, polarizing beam splitters, half-waveplates, polarizers and single-photon detectors. The experimental activity has been performed with high-school students and teachers in several different contexts.
The chapter discusses the Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI), which uses beam splitters in combination with mirrors to place a photon into a superposition of paths. In a final beam splitter, the two paths may be recombined to interfere, showing wave behavior. If the final beam splitter is removed, the photon is definitely in one path or the other, showing particle behavior. The polarization of light allows additional applications—one can use a polarizing beam splitter to separate and reconstitute the wave functions of a photon polarized at an angle. In a delayed-choice experiment, one decides which kind of experiment one is to do, particle or wave, after the photon has already entered the arms of the MZI. The chapter discusses a version of this that puts the MZI and a second-detector photon in an entangled state of particle and wave results.
Wave-particle duality and entanglement are two fundamental characteristics of quantum mechanics. All previous works on experimental investigations in wave-particle properties of single photons (or single particles in general) showed that a well-defined interferometer setting determines a well-defined property of single photons. Here we take a conceptual step forward and control the wave-particle property of single photons with a Bell state. By doing so, we experimentally test the complementarity principle in a scenario in which the setting of the interferometer is not defined at any instance of the experiment, not even in principle. To achieve this goal, we establish the three-photon entangled state, i.e., the entanglement between a single photon and a two-photon Bell state, send the photon of interest SSS into a quantum Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI), in which the output beam splitter of the MZI is controlled by the quantum state of the second photon CCC, which is entangled with a third photon AAA. Therefore, the individual quantum state of photon CCC is undefined, which implements the undefined settings of the MZI for photon SSS. This is realized by using three cascaded phase-stable interferometers for three photons. There is typically no well-defined setting of the MZI and thus the very formulation of the wave-particle objectivity from local hidden variable models becomes internally inconsistent.