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Wave Particle Duality and the Afshar Experiment January, 2011 PROGRESS IN PHYSICS Volume 1 Wave Particle Duality and the Afshar Experiment Aurelien´ Drezet Institut Neel, 25 rue des Martyrs 38042, Grenoble, France. E-mail: [email protected] We analyze the experiment realized in 2003-2004 by S. Afshar et al. [1] in order to refute the principle of complementarity. We discuss the general meaning of this principle and show that contrarily to the claim of the authors Bohr’s complementarity is not in danger in this experiment. 1 Introduction necessarily different photons for their recording. It is in that sense that each experiment excludes and completes recipro- In an interesting series of articles published few years ago cally the other. In the case considered before the photon is Afshar and coworkers [1,2] reported an optical experiment in absorbed during the first detection (this clearly precludes any which they claimed to refute the well known N. Bohr prin- other detection). However even a non-destructive solution for ciple of complementarity [3, 4]. Obviously this result, if jus- detection implying entanglement with other quantum systems tified, would constitute a serious attack against the orthodox has a radical effect of the same nature: the complementarity interpretation of quantum mechanics (known as the Copen- principle is still valid. For example, during their debate Bohr hagen interpretation). This work stirred much debate in dif- and Einstein [3] discussed an ideal which-way experiment in ferent journals (see for examples references [5–12]). which the recoil of the slits is correlated to the motion of the We think however that there are still some important misun- photon. Momentum conservation added to arguments based derstandings concerning the interpretation of this experiment. on the uncertainty relations are sufficient to explain how such In a preprint written originally in 2004 [5] (and following entanglement photon-slits can erase fringes [15–19]. It is some early discussions with Afshar) we claimed already that also important for the present discussion to remind that the the interpretation by Afshar et al. can be easily stated if we principle of complementarity has a perfidious consequence stay as close as possible from the texts written by Bohr. The on the experimental meaning of trajectory and path followed aim of the present article (which was initially written in 2005 by a particle. Indeed the unavoidable interactions existing to precise a bit the thought developed in [5]) is to comment between photons and detectors imply that a trajectory exist- the interpretation discussed in [1]. We will in the following ing independently of any measurement process cannot be un- analyze the meaning of Bohr principle and show that far from ambiguously defined. This sounds even like a tragedy when disproving its content the experiment [1] is actually a com- we consider once again the two-holes experiment. Indeed plete confirmation of its general validity. for Bohr this kind of experiments shows definitely the es- The difficulties associated with the understanding of this prin- sential element of ambiguity which is involved in ascribing ciple are not new and actually complementarity created trou- conventional physical attributes to quantum systems. Intu- bles even in Einstein mind [3] so that we are here in good itively (i. e., from the point of view of classical particle dy- company. To summarize a bit emphatically Bohr’s comple- namic) one would expect that a photon detected in the focal mentarity we here remind that this principle states that if one plane of the lens must have crossed only one of the hole 1 of a pair of non commuting observables of a quantum object or 2 before to reach its final destination. However, if this is is known for sure, then information about the second (com- true, one can not intuitively understand how the presence of plementary) is lost [3, 4, 15, 16]. This can be equivalently the second hole (through which the photon evidently did not expressed as a kind of duality between different descriptions go) forces the photon to participate to an interference pat- of the quantum system associated with different experimen- tern (which obviously needs an influence coming from both tal arrangements which mutually exclude each other (read in holes). Explanations to solve this paradox have been pro- particular [3,4]). Later in the discussion we will try to precise posed by de Broglie, Bohm, and others using concepts such this definition but for the moment it is enough to illustrate the as empty waves or quantum potentials [20, 21]. However concepts by examples all these explanations are in agreement with Bohr principle Consider for instance the well known Young double-pinholes (since they fully reproduce quantum predictions) and can not interference experiment made with photons. The discrete na- be experimentally distinguished. Bohr and Heisenberg pro- ture of light precludes the simultaneous observation of a same posed for all needed purposes a much more pragmatic and photon in the aperture plane and in the interference pattern: simpler answer: don’t bother, the complementarity principle the photon cannot be absorbed twice. This is already a trivial precludes the simultaneous observation of a photon trajectory manifestation of the principle of Bohr. Here it implies that the and of an interference pattern. For Bohr [3]: This point is of two statistical patterns associated with the wave in the aper- great logical consequence, since it is only the circumstance ture plane and its Fourier (i. e., momentum) transform require that we are presented with a choice of either tracing the path Aurelien´ Drezet. Wave Particle Duality and the Afshar Experiment 57 Volume 1 PROGRESS IN PHYSICS January, 2011 the pinholes 1 and 2. Like the initial Young two-holes exper- iment this example illustrates again very well the principle of Bohr. One has indeed complete freedom for measuring the photon distribution in the image plane instead of detecting the fringes in the back focal plane. However, the two kinds of measurements are mutually exclusive: a single photon can participate only to one of these statistical patterns. In the second and final part of the experiment, Afshar et al. included a grid of thin absorbing wires located in the in- terference fringes plane. Importantly, in the experiment the wires must be located at the minimum of the interference pat- tern in order to reduce the interaction with light. In the fol- lowing we will consider a perfect interference profile (with Fig. 1: The experiment described in [1]. Photons coming from pin- ideal unit visibility V = (Imax − Imin)=(Imax + Imin) = 1) to holes 1 and 2 interfere in the back-focal plane of a lens (Fourier simplify the discussion. If additionally the geometrical cross plane) whereas they lead to two isolated narrow spots in the image section of each wire tends ideally to zero then the interfer- plane (the image plane is such that its distance p0 to the lens is re- ence behavior will, at the limit, not be disturbed and the sub- lated to the distance p between the lens and the apertures screen by sequent wave propagation will be kept unchanged. This im- 1=p + 1=p0 = 1= f , where f is the focal length). The wire grid in the plies that the photon distributions 1’ and 2’, located in the back focal plane, distant of f from the lens, is passing through the image plane optically conjugated with the aperture plane, are minima of the interference pattern. The subsequent propagation of not modified by the presence, or the absence, of the infinitely the wave is consequently not disturbed by the grid. thin wire grid. Naturally, from practical considerations an in- finitely thin dielectric wire is not interacting with light and consequently produces the same (null) effect whatever its lo- of a particle or observing interference effects, which allows cation in the light path (minimum or maximum of the inter- us to escape from the paradoxical necessity of concluding ference for example). In order to provide a sensible probe for that the behaviour of an electron or a photon should depend the interference pattern, necessary for the aim of the experi- on the presence of a slit in the diaphragm through which it ment considered, we will suppose in the following idealized could be proved not to pass. From such an analysis it seems wires which conserve a finite absorbtion efficiency and this definitively that Nature resists to deeper experimental inves- despite the absence of any geometrical transversal extension. tigation of its ontological level. As summarized elegantly by We will briefly discuss later what happens with spatially ex- Brian Greene [22]: Like a Spalding Gray soliloquy, an exper- tended scattering wires with finite cross section, but this point imenter’s bare-bones measurement are the whole show. There is not essential to understand the essential of the argumenta- isn’t anything else. According to Bohr, there is no backstage. tion. With such wires, and if we close one aperture (which In spite of its interest it is however not the aim of the present implies that there is no interference fringes and thus that a fi- article to debate on the full implications of such strong philo- nite field impinges on the wires) the scattering and absorbtion sophical position. strongly affect the detection behavior in the image plane. As it is seen experimentally [1, 2] the scattering by the wire grid 2 Complementarity versus the experiments in general produces a complicated diffraction pattern and not only an isolated narrow peak in 1’ or 2’ as it would be without 2.1 A short description of the Afshar et al. experiment the grid. The experiment reported in [1] (see Fig.
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