Ramsey Fringes and Time-domain Multiple-Slit Interference from Vacuum

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how sequences of electric field pulses can produce quantum interference effects in vacuum pair production, creating a time-domain multiple-slit interference pattern analogous to a Ramsey interferometer.

Contribution

It introduces a novel all-optical method to realize multiple-slit interference directly from the quantum vacuum using electric field pulses.

Findings

Interference pattern depends on the number of pulses

Central value of pair production scales as N^2

Behavior described by a coherent multiple-slit model

Abstract

Sequences of alternating-sign time-dependent electric field pulses lead to coherent interference effects in Schwinger vacuum pair production, producing a Ramsey interferometer, an all-optical time-domain realization of the multiple-slit interference effect, directly from the quantum vacuum. The interference, obeying fermionic quantum statistics, is manifest in the momentum dependence of the number of produced electrons and positrons along the linearly polarized electric field. The central value grows like $N^2$ for $N$ pulses [i.e., $N$ "slits"], and the functional form is well-described by a coherent multiple-slit expression. This behavior is generic for many driven quantum systems.