When photons are lying about where they have been

TL;DR

This paper examines the interpretation of a photon's past in a nested interferometer with a Dove prism, clarifying misconceptions about how the prism affects the photon’s history and analyzing experimental results.

Contribution

It clarifies that the Dove prism does not alter the photon’s past and explains why certain experimental results are misleading, providing a detailed Bohmian trajectory analysis.

Findings

The Dove prism does not change the photon’s past.

Experimental signals can be misleading about the photon’s location.

Bohmian trajectories clarify photon behavior in the interferometer.

Abstract

The past of the photon in a nested Mach-Zehnder interferometer with an inserted Dove prism is analyzed. It is argued that the Dove prism does not change the past of the photon. Alonso and Jordan correctly point out that an experiment by Danan et al. demonstrating the past of the photon in nested interferometer will show different results when the Dove prism is inserted. The reason, however, is not that the past is changed, but that the experimental demonstration becomes incorrect. The explanation of a signal from the place in which the photon was (almost) not present is given. Bohmian trajectory of the photon is specified.