Quantum physics and the beam splitter mystery

TL;DR

This paper explores the dual wave-particle nature of optical beam splitters in quantum physics, analyzing their behavior in experiments and proposing an alternative wave optics model to clarify their mysterious properties.

Contribution

It provides a detailed discussion of beam splitter properties from classical and quantum perspectives and introduces an alternative empirical wave optics model.

Findings

Beam splitters exhibit both particle-like and wave-like features.

Experimental results demonstrate photon existence and behavior.

An alternative wave optics model offers new insights into beam splitter properties.

Abstract

Optical lossless beam splitters are frequently encountered in fundamental physics experiments regarding the nature of light, including "which-way" determination of light particles, N. Bohr's complementarity principle, or the EPR paradox and all their measurement apparatus. Although they look as common optical components at first glance, their behaviour remains somewhat mysterious since they apparently exhibit stand-alone particle-like features, and then wave-like characteristics when inserted into a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. In this communication are examined and discussed some basic properties of these beamssplitters, both from a classical optics and quantum physics point of view. Herein some convergences and contradictions are highlighted, and the results of a few emblematic experiments demonstrating photon existence are discussed. An alternative empirical model in wave optics is also proposed in order to shed light on some remaining questions