An Experimental Test of the Trajectory Predictions of Bohmian Quantum Mechanics

TL;DR

This paper proposes an experimental test to observe the unique photon trajectories predicted by Bohmian quantum mechanics, which could differ from standard quantum predictions by arriving earlier at detectors due to their curved paths.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental setup to directly test the trajectory predictions of Bohmian mechanics against standard quantum mechanics.

Findings

Potential to distinguish Bohmian trajectories from standard quantum paths

Design of an experiment with corner-turns to observe trajectory deviations

Implications for understanding quantum particle behavior

Abstract

We propose an experimental time-of-flight test of the photon "trajectory" predictions of the Bohmian version of quantum mechanics. The photon trajectories in free space, as predicted by Bohmian mechanics, deviate from expected straight-line paths, bending and turning corners in the presence of quantum interference. We propose an experiment using two such corner-turns that should, in principle, allow these hypothetical Bohmian photons to arrive at a timing detector earlier than conventional photons traveling on the straight-line paths predicted by standard quantum mechanics.