Wave-particle duality: suggestion for an experiment

TL;DR

This paper proposes an experimental setup using noble gas atoms in a double-slit interferometer to detect single atoms as probability waves, aiming to explore wave-particle duality more effectively than with elementary particles.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental design utilizing harmonic motion detectors to distinguish wave versus particle impacts on atoms, advancing the study of quantum wave-particle duality.

Findings

Potential to detect individual atoms as probability waves

Differentiation between wave and particle impacts using harmonic oscillators

Enhanced feasibility with noble gas atoms compared to elementary particles

Abstract

Feynman contended that the double-slit experiment contained the `only mystery' in quantum mechanics. The mystery was that electrons traverse the interferometer as waves, but are detected as particles. This note was motivated by the question whether single electrons can be detected as waves. It suggests a double-slit interferometry experiment with atoms of noble gases in which it may be possible to detect an individual atom as a probability wave, using a detector which can execute two different types of simple harmonic motion: as a simple pendulum, and as a torsion pendulum. In the experiment, a torsional oscillation will never be induced by the impact of a probability wave, but will always be induced by the impact of a particle. Detection as a wave is contingent on the atom interacting much more strongly with the macroscopic detector as a whole than with its microscopic constituents. This requirement may be more difficult to meet with electrons, protons, neutrons or photons than with atoms.