Exotic Looped Trajectories of Photons in Three-Slit Interference

TL;DR

This paper experimentally confirms the validity of Born's rule by observing exotic photon trajectories in a three-slit interference experiment, achieved through near-field enhancement via surface plasmon excitation.

Contribution

It provides the first direct measurement of exotic looped photon trajectories, linking them to near-field effects and challenging previous assumptions about their observability.

Findings

Confirmed Born's rule with experimental data

First observation of exotic photon trajectories

Linked exotic paths to near-field effects

Abstract

The validity of the superposition principle and of Born's rule are well-accepted tenants of quantum mechanics. Surprisingly, it has recently been predicted that the intensity pattern formed in a three-slit experiment is seemingly in contradiction with the predictions of the most conventional form of the superposition principle when exotic looped trajectories are taken into account. However, the probability of observing such paths is typically very small and thus rendering them extremely difficult to measure. In this work, we confirm the validity of Born's rule and present the first experimental observation of these exotic trajectories as additional paths for the light by directly measuring their contribution to the formation of optical interference fringes. We accomplish this by enhancing the electromagnetic near-fields in the vicinity of the slits through the excitation of surface plasmons. This process effectively increases the probability of occurrence of these exotic trajectories, demonstrating that they are related to the near-field component of the photon's wavefunction.