How does light move?

Davidović, M.; Sanz, Ángel S.

doi:10.1051/epn/2013604

Cited by 27 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 13 publications

(15 reference statements)

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“…This means that, at the level of the average electromagnetic field (or the wave function, in the case of material particles, in general), full which-way information can still be inferred without destroying the interference pattern. That is, rather than complementarity, the experiment seems to suggest that a photon wave function has a tangible (measurable) physical reality [48], in agreement with a recent theorem on the realistic nature of the wave function [49].…”

Section: Electromagnetic Energy Flow Lines: Interference Behind Two Ssupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Actually, EME flow lines obtained [47,48] from a numerical simulation of Young's two-slit experiment with parameters taken from the experiment performed by Kocsis et al [13] showed a good agreement with the averaged photon trajectories inferred from the experimental data. It is worth stressing that the photon trajectories reconstructed from the experiment were in compliance with the Bohmian approach, thus confirming that trajectories coming from different slits do not cross.…”

Section: Electromagnetic Energy Flow Lines: Interference Behind Two S...mentioning

confidence: 56%

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Description of Classical and Quantum Interference in View of the Concept of Flow Line

2015

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Bohmian mechanics, a hydrodynamic formulation of quantum mechanics, relies on the concept of trajectory, which evolves in time in compliance with dynamical information conveyed by the wave function. Here this appealing idea is considered to analyze both classical and quantum interference, thus providing an alternative and more intuitive framework to understand the time-evolution of waves, either in terms of the flow of energy (for mechanical waves, sound waves, electromagnetic waves, for instance) or, analogously, the flow of probability (quantum waves), respectively. Furthermore, this procedure also supplies a more robust explanation of interference phenomena, which currently is only based on the superposition principle. That is, while this principle only describes how different waves combine and what effects these combinations may lead to, flow lines provide a more precise explanation on how the energy or probability propagate in space before, during and after the combination of such waves, without dealing with them separately (i.e., the combination or superposition is taken as a whole). In this sense, concepts such as constructive and destructive interference, typically associated with the superposition principle, physically correspond to more or less dense swarms of (energy or probability) flow lines, respectively. A direct consequence of this description is that, when considering the distribution of electromagnetic energy flow lines behind two slits, each one covered by a differently oriented polarizer, it is naturally found that external observers' information on the slit crossed by single photons (understood as energy parcels) is totally irrelevant for the existence of interference fringes, in striking contrast with what is commonly stated and taught.

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Section: Electromagnetic Energy Flow Lines: Interference Behind Two Ssupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Electromagnetic Energy Flow Lines: Interference Behind Two S...mentioning

confidence: 56%

Description of Classical and Quantum Interference in View of the Concept of Flow Line

2015

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“…Inspired by the Bohmian ideas, an experiment performed at the University of Toronto in 2011 by Steinberg and coworkers [36] showed that, by using weak measurements (a slight perturbation on the quantum system before performing the true measurement, namely a von Neumann measurement, which helps to obtain complementary information according to Vaidman et al [37]), the transverse momentum could be measured on average. Although the experiment was performed with photons, i.e., zero-mass particles, and Bohmian mechanics, as it was formerly devised, was employed to describe massive ones (or, in general, any quantum system characterized by a nonzero mass), the experimental outcomes were in compliance with the expected transverse momentum, although this momentum is associated with Poynting's vector (as formerly suggested by Prosser [38] back in 1976) rather than with Bohm's momentum, and from them an ensemble of paths could be reconstructed, in good agreement with the corresponding trajectories [39][40][41][42].…”

Section: Young's Two-slit Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 86%

Quantum Interference, Hidden Symmetries: Theory and Experimental Facts

Sanz

2018

J. Phys.: Conf. Ser.

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The concept of quantum superposition is reconsidered and discussed from the viewpoint of Bohmian mechanics, the hydrodynamic formulation of quantum mechanics, in order to elucidate some physical consequences that go beyond the simple mathematical idea of linearly combining vectors in a Hilbert space. Specifically, the discussion turns around the connection between symmetries characterizing the wave function and the behavior in time displayed by the quantum flux when the latter is analyzed in terms of streamlines (Bohmian trajectories). This is illustrated with a series of analytical results and numerical simulations, which include Young's two-slit experiment, counter-propagating wave packets, grating diffraction and quantum carpets (e.g., Talbot carpets), and diffraction under confinement conditions. From the analysis presented it follows that quantum paradoxes appear whenever symmetries related to interference are neglected in the interpretation and understanding of the corresponding phenomena.

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“…This behavior was actually observed in the experiments with photons performed by Kocsis et al [32] more than a decade ago. With the aid of weak measurements, it was possible to measure the transverse momentum, which is a quantity precisely proportional to the Bohmian instantaneous velocity field (although the latter refers to massive particles and, in the case of photons, is related to the transverse component of the wave vector under paraxial conditions [51,52]).…”

Section: Single-system Dynamical Behaviorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young’s Experiment with Entangled Bipartite Systems: The Role of Underlying Quantum Velocity Fields

Sanz

2023

Entropy

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We consider the concept of velocity fields, taken from Bohmian mechanics, to investigate the dynamical effects of entanglement in bipartite realizations of Young’s two-slit experiment. In particular, by comparing the behavior exhibited by factorizable two-slit states (cat-type state analogs in the position representation) with the dynamics exhibited by a continuous-variable Bell-type maximally entangled state, we find that, while the velocity fields associated with each particle in the separable scenario are well-defined and act separately on each subspace, in the entangled case there is a strong deformation in the total space that prevents this behavior. Consequently, the trajectories for each subsystem are not constrained any longer to remain confined within the corresponding subspace; rather, they exhibit seemingly wandering behavior across the total space. In this way, within the subspace associated with each particle (that is, when we trace over the other subsystem), not only interference features are washed out, but also the so-called Bohmian non-crossing rule (i.e., particle trajectories are allowed to get across the same point at the same time).

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How does light move?

Cited by 27 publications

References 13 publications

Description of Classical and Quantum Interference in View of the Concept of Flow Line

Description of Classical and Quantum Interference in View of the Concept of Flow Line

Quantum Interference, Hidden Symmetries: Theory and Experimental Facts

Young’s Experiment with Entangled Bipartite Systems: The Role of Underlying Quantum Velocity Fields

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