Single-Photon Interference Experiment with a Fast Chopper

Alain Aspect, Philippe Grangier

R. Calabrese

Kayoko Awaya, Makoto Tomita

We performed single-photon interference experiments with neutral density filters and slow beam choppers to confirm the difference between stochastic and deterministic absorption and obtained results that agreed with the case of neutron-interference experiments and quantum theory.

Arthur L. Robinson

P. Hariharan

H. Rauch, Johann Summhammer

Absorbers and other beam attenuators inside a neutron interferometer have different influences on the interference pattern, ranging from a stochastic to a deterministic situation. We show that in the quantum limit a smooth transition between both cases is possible. The quantum limit can be approached when using thin absorption gratings, very fast choppers, or rapidly changing fields. The nonremoval probability of neutrons from the original phase space is identified as a crucial quantity describing these phenomena. Experimental results obtained with thin absorption gratings are in agreement with these formulations.