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Education and Training in Optics and Photonics

How does energy separate in the fringes produced by intersecting beams?

Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri, Kenneth Bernier

Published Jan 1, 2003• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Spatial energy re-distribution as interference fringes are recorded when two spatially and temporally coherent beams intersect. We show simple experiments with different recording materials to explain this energy re-distribution process. Interference effects are manifest in materials as dictated by their quantum properties because optical fields do not interfere with (or operate on) each other.

DOI
10.1364/etop.2003.emi11

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How does energy separate in the fringes produced by intersecting beams?

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Spatial energy re-distribution as interference fringes are recorded when two spatially and temporally coherent beams intersect. We show simple experiments with different recording materials to explain this energy re-distribution process. Interference effects are manifest in materials as dictated by their quantum properties because optical fields do not interfere with (or operate on) each other.

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Spatial energy re-distribution as interference fringes are recorded when two spatially and temporally coherent beams intersect. We show simple experiments with different recording materials to explain this energy re-distribution process. Interference effects are manifest in materials as dictated by their quantum properties because optical fields do not interfere with (or operate on) each other.
The interpretation of the detection of very slow rate of photo counts in interference and diffraction experiments have given rise to the prevailing interpretation that photons interfere by themselves and they are indivisible, albeit non-local. The purpose of this paper is to inspire the development of alternate models for the photons by underscoring that, in reality, light does not interfere with light. The effects of superposition, registered as interference fringes, can become manifest only when a suitable detector can respond simultaneously to all the superposed light beams separately arriving from all the paths (or, slits). It should be a strictly causal process. In fact, different detectors with different quantum properties, report different results while exposed to the same superposed fields. Interference and diffraction effects are always observed as fringes through the processes of re-distribution and/or re-direction of the measured energy of the superimposed fields. Accordingly, we present a number of experiments, actual and conceptual, which highlight the contradictions built into the notion of non-locality in interference. A closer examination of these experiments can guide us to develop a conceptually congruent and causal model for both the evolution of photons and the interference (diffraction) effects by adapting to the classical diffraction theory. This theory has been correctly predicting the characteristics of light whether it is star light propagating through the inter galactic space, or nano tip generated light propagating through complex nano photonic waveguides.
The physical interaction processes behind the emergence of dark and bright fringes registered by the detectors at the output of optical interferometers is explained. This knowledge should be helpful to interferometrists to make better physical interpretations of their data. The belief in mysterious “interference of single indivisible photon” will disappear once we recognize that the spatial or temporal energy re-distributions are generated by the physical transformation experienced by the detecting molecules drawing energy from all the light beams. The molecules could be photodetectors at the interferometer output, or the beam combining dielectric boundary. The superposition principle (SP), represented by the linear mathematical sum of two or more wave amplitudes, does not represent an observable phenomenon. The superposition effect (SE), represented by the non-linear square modulus of the joint dipolar stimulation of the detectors by all the superposed waves, is observable. We present two laboratory experiments to clarify these points. Both classical beam combiners and quantum detectors are capable of generating superposition fringes of intensity variations. The logic of “quantumness” of light is narrowly relevant only when a quantum detector deciphers the fringes; it is not valid for classical beam combiners. We will also discuss “entanglement” based on these experiments.
The intention of this paper is to underscore that to understand fundamentally new properties of light beams, we must first find the limits of semi classical model to explain optical interference phenomena. We claim that we have not yet reached that limit. Careful analysis of the processes behind detecting fringes indicate that the effect of superposition of multiple optical beams can become manifest only through the mediation of the detecting dipoles. Since the detectors are quantum mechanical, (i) the observed effects are different for different detectors for the same superposed light beams, and further, (ii) they are only capable of registering discrete number of "clicks", whose rate will vary with the incident intensity. A reduced rate of "clicks" at very low intensity does not prove that light consists of indivisible packets of energy. We have also experimentally demonstrated that (i) neither Fourier synthesis, nor, (ii) Fourier decomposition actually model the behavior of EM fields under all possible circumstances. Superposed light beams of different frequencies do not synthesize a new average optical frequency. A pure amplitude modulated pulse does not contain any of the mathematical, Fourier analyzed frequencies. The QED definition of photon being a Fourier mode in the vacuum, it necessarily becomes non-local. Since we have demonstrated that the Fourier theorem has various limitations in classical physics, its indiscriminate use in quantum mechanics should also be critically reviewed.
Using the unique detection properties offered by metastable helium atoms we have produced high resolution images of the transverse spatial profiles of an atom laser beam. We observe fringes on the beam, resulting from quantum mechanical interference between atoms that start from rest at different transverse locations within the outcoupling surface and end up at a later time with different velocities at the same transverse position. Numerical simulations in the low output-coupling limit give good quantitative agreement with our experimental data.
This paper speculates on the origin of dark energy & and dark matter as the potential energy of the cosmic medium as different forms of stresses in equilibrium. We are hypothesizing that EM waves and all particles are some form of undulations of different kinds of fields when the various stressed states of the cosmic medium are displaced from their equilibrium states. We have come to such conclusions as we have attempted to impose causality on the superposition effects we observe when EM beams or particles beams are superposed on detectors. We assume that detectors must experience all the incident beams on them simultaneously to be able to report the superposition effects; the fields themselves do not produce the energy re-distribution that we register as fringes. For light waves, this assumption is almost obvious because light or laser beams pass through each other without modifying each other. Yet, unlike bulk-matter waves, like those on water, we cannot "see" the fringes of light waves unless we insert detecting molecules within the volume of superposition. So, what undulates and how are the fringes are formed? We postulate that right kind of detectors with the right QM rules must do the summing of the influences brought on them by all the superposed fields simultaneously. We call this approach Reality Ontology (RO). We illustrate the concept with optical interference and diffraction experiments. Then we extend the "RO" concept to particle "interference" by hypothesizing that the relevant phases of the particles are due to some physical internal periodic undulations rather than de Broglie's "Pilot Waves".