Identical two-particle interferometry in diffraction gratings

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how indistinguishable particles such as bosons and fermions diffract and interfere in gratings, revealing unique detection patterns and differences from distinguishable particles through analytical models.

Contribution

It provides analytical evaluations of diffraction and interference patterns for two-particle systems, highlighting notable differences based on particle type and exchange effects.

Findings

Bosons, fermions, and distinguishable particles show distinct diffraction patterns.

Fermions exhibit null double detection probabilities at certain planes.

Correlation functions reflect the periodic structure of gratings.

Abstract

We study diffraction and interference of indistinguishable particles. We consider some examples where the wavefunctions and detection probabilities can be evaluated in an analytical way. The diffraction pattern of a two-particle system shows notorious differences for the cases of bosons, fermions and distinguishable particles. In the example of near-field interferometry, the exchange effects for two-fermion systems lead to the existence of planes at which the probability of double detection is null. We also discuss the relation with the approach to systems of identical particles based on correlation functions. In particular, we shall see that these functions reflect, as in noise interferometry, the underlying periodic structure of the diffraction grating.