Hanbury Brown--Twiss interferometry with electrons: Coulomb vs. quantum statistics

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether observed electron anti-correlations in Hanbury Brown--Twiss experiments are due to quantum statistics or Coulomb repulsion, concluding that quantum effects are indeed responsible.

Contribution

The paper presents a simple classical Coulomb model to estimate its effects and demonstrates that the observed anti-correlations are primarily due to quantum statistics.

Findings

Coulomb effects can be modeled classically to estimate their impact.

Experimental anti-correlations are attributed to quantum statistics rather than Coulomb repulsion.

Supports the observation of quantum correlations in electron interferometry.

Abstract

A longstanding goal of Akira Tonomura was to observe Hanbury Brown--Twiss anti-correlations between electrons in a field-emission free electron beam. The experimental results were reported in his 2011 paper with Tetsuji Kodama and Nobuyuki Osakabe [Phys. Rev. A 83, 063616 (2011)]. An open issue in such a measurement is whether the observed anti-correlations arise from quantum statistics, or are simply produced by Coulomb repulsion between electrons. In this paper we describe a simple classical model of Coulomb effects to estimate their effects in electron beam interferometry experiments, and conclude that the experiment did indeed observe quantum correlations in the electron arrrival times.