Restoration of interference and the fallacy of delayed choice: Concerning an experiment proposed by Englert, Scully, and Walther

American Journal of Physics

Volumn 64, Issue 12, 1996, Pages 1468-1475

  Mohrhoff, Ulrich ^a  

^a Sri Aurobindo Society   (India)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0030505086     PISSN: 00029505     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1119/1.18411     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. Berthold-Georg Englert, Marlan O. Scully, and Herbert Walther, "The Duality in Matter and Light," Sci. Am. 271 (6), 56-61 (December 1994).
2. Marlan O. Scully, Berthold-Georg Englert, and Herbert Walther, "Quantum Optical Tests of Complementarity," Nature 351 (6322), 111-116 (1991).
3. John Archibald Wheeler, "Delayed-choice experiments and the Bohr-Einstein dialog," in The American Philosophical Society and The Royal Society: Papers read at a meeting, June 5, 1980 (American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1981). Reprinted in John Archibald Wheeler and Wojciech Hubert Zurek, Quantum Theory and Measurement (Princeton U. P., Princeton, NJ, 1983), pp. 182-200.
4. John Archibald Wheeler, "Delayed-choice experiments and the Bohr-Einstein dialog," in The American Philosophical Society and The Royal Society: Papers read at a meeting, June 5, 1980 (American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1981). Reprinted in John Archibald Wheeler and Wojciech Hubert Zurek, Quantum Theory and Measurement (Princeton U. P., Princeton, NJ, 1983), pp. 182-200.
5. Seven types of delayed-choice experiments are spelled out in John Archibald Wheeler, "The Past and the Delayed Choice Double Slit Experiment," in Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Theory, edited by A. R. Marlow (Academic, New York, 1978), pp. 9-48.
6. John Archibald Wheeler, "Frontiers of Time," in Problems in the Foundations of Physics, edited by N. Toraldo di Francia (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1979), pp. 395-497.
7. William C. Wickes, Carroll O. Alley, and Oleg Jakubowicz, "A 'delayed-choice' quantum mechanics experiment," in Wheeler and Zurek, Ref. 3, pp. 457-461.
8. M. O. Scully and K. Drühl, "Quantum Eraser: A Proposed Photon Correlation Experiment Concerning Observation and 'Delayed Choice' in Quantum Mechanics," Phys. Rev. A 25 (4), 2208-2213 (1982).
9. Bernard d'Espagnat, Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (Benjamin, Reading, MA, 1976), 2nd ed., part 3.
10. Bernard d'Espagnat, "Nonseparability and the Tentative Descriptions of Reality" in Quantum Theory and Pictures of Reality, edited by Wolfram Schommers (Springer, Berlin and Heidelberg, 1989), pp. 89-168.
11. Michael Redhead, Incompleteness, Nonlocality and Realism (Clarendon, Oxford, 1987), Chap. 4.
12. For a fine recapitulation see Abner Shimony, "Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics" in The New Physics, edited by Paul Davies (Cambridge U. P., Cambridge, 1989), pp. 373-395.
13. For the theory of the tensor product of two Hilbert spaces, see, e.g., J. M. Jauch, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1968), pp. 175-182, or Eugene P. Wigner, "Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," in Wheeler and Zurek, Ref. 3, Sec. 3, pp. 260-344.
14. For the theory of the tensor product of two Hilbert spaces, see, e.g., J. M. Jauch, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1968), pp. 175-182, or Eugene P. Wigner, "Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," in Wheeler and Zurek, Ref. 3, Sec. 3, pp. 260-344.
15. Reference 12, Jauch, p. 132.
16. Richard P. Feynman and A. R. Hibbs, Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1965).
17. Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics: Volume 1 (Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1963), pp. 37.7-37.10; Volume 3 (Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1965), pp. 1.4-1.9, 3.1-3.7.
18. Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics: Volume 1 (Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1963), pp. 37.7-37.10; Volume 3 (Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1965), pp. 1.4-1.9, 3.1-3.7.
19. William K. Wooters and Wojciech H. Zurek, "Complementarity in the double-slit experiment: quantum nonseparability and a quantitative statement of Bohr's principle," Phys. Rev. D 19, 473-484 (1979). Reprinted in Wheeler and Zurek, Ref. 3, pp. 443-454.
20. Since any determination of the alternative taken by the process presupposes such a correlation, this is actually the only reason for the disappearance of the interference pattern.
21. A follows from the equality of these two probabilities.
22. Daniel M. Grecnberger and Alaine YaSin, "'Haunted' Measurements in Quantum Theory," Found. Phys. 19 (6), 679-704 (1989).
23. That the atom's center-of-mass wave function is not disturbed by the spontaneous emission of the photon has been shown by B.-G. Englert, J. Schwinger, and M. O. Scully in New Frontiers in Quantum Electrodynamics and Quantum Optics, edited by A. O. Barut (Plenum, New York, 1990), pp. 513-519.
24. 3/2 state, say) with unit probability even when the cavity does not contain photons initially. See Ref. 2.
25. See Ref. 2.
26. Hugh Everett, III. "'Relative State' Formulation of Quantum Mechanics," Rev. Mod. Phys. 29 (3), 454-462 (1957). Reprinted in Bryce S. DeWitt and Neill Graham, The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Princeton U. P., Princeton, NJ, 1973), pp. 141-149.
27. Hugh Everett, III. "'Relative State' Formulation of Quantum Mechanics," Rev. Mod. Phys. 29 (3), 454-462 (1957). Reprinted in Bryce S. DeWitt and Neill Graham, The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Princeton U. P., Princeton, NJ, 1973), pp. 141-149.
28. Reference 3, p. 193. If one collects which-way information, the particle is never observed to take both routes, either as a whole or in parts. The particle can only take both routes when it is not possible to watch it taking one route or the other (in which case it is of course equally impossible to watch it taking one route and the other). Nor is observed interference sufficient evidence of the particle's taking both routes, as hidden variables theories demonstrate. [David Bohm, "A suggested interpretation of the quantum theory in terms of 'hidden' variables, I and II," Phys. Rev. 85, 166-193 (1952); reprinted in Wheeler and Zurek, Ref. 3, pp. 369-396.] Only if quantum mechanics is assumed to be complete (no hidden variables), can interference be regarded as (indirect) evidence that the particle has taken both routes.
29. Bernard d'Espagnat, Reality and the Physicist (Cambridge U. P., Cambridge, 1989), pp. 155-165.
30. John Archibald Wheeler, "Bits, Quanta, Meaning," in Problems in Theoretical Physics, edited by A. Giovannini, F. Mancini and M. Marinaro (University of Salerno, Salerno, 1984).
31. Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, "Classical and Quantum Desciptions," in The Physicist's Conception of Nature, edited by Jagdish Mehra (Reidel, Dordrecht, 1973), pp. 635-667.
32. Reference 10, pp. 48-49.
33. See Ref. 11.
34. Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (Harper and Row, New York, 1958), Chap. 3.
35. Niels Bohr, Dialectica 2, 312 (1948); reprinted in Niels Bohr, Collected Works (North Holland, Amsterdam, 1972 and onwards), Vol. 7; quoted in Abraham Pais, Niels Bohr's Times, in Physics, Philosophy, and Polity (Clarendon, Oxford, 1991), p. 433.
36. Niels Bohr, Dialectica 2, 312 (1948); reprinted in Niels Bohr, Collected Works (North Holland, Amsterdam, 1972 and onwards), Vol. 7; quoted in Abraham Pais, Niels Bohr's Times, in Physics, Philosophy, and Polity (Clarendon, Oxford, 1991), p. 433.
37. Niels Bohr, Dialectica 2, 312 (1948); reprinted in Niels Bohr, Collected Works (North Holland, Amsterdam, 1972 and onwards), Vol. 7; quoted in Abraham Pais, Niels Bohr's Times, in Physics, Philosophy, and Polity (Clarendon, Oxford, 1991), p. 433.
38. See, for instance, Ref. 3, pp. 184 and 192.