Simulation of Afshar's Double Slit Experiment

TL;DR

This paper simulates Afshar's modified double-slit experiment using path integral quantum mechanics, concluding that the experiment aligns with wave-particle duality and has limited use for testing quantum interpretations.

Contribution

The paper provides a simulation-based analysis of Afshar's experiment, clarifying its implications for wave-particle duality and the limits of its interpretative power.

Findings

Simulation confirms agreement with wave-particle duality relation

Experiment does not conclusively challenge complementarity

Limited utility for testing quantum interpretations

Abstract

Shahriar S. Afshar claimed that his 2007 modified version of the double-slit experiment violates complementarity [1]. He makes two modifications to the standard double-slit experiment. First, he adds a wire grid that is placed in between the slits and the screen at locations of interference minima. The second modification is to place a converging lens just after the wire grid. The idea is that the wire grid implies the existence of interference minima(wave-like behavior), while the lens can simultaneously obtain which-way information (particle-like behavior). More recently, John G. Cramer [2] argued that the experiment bolstered the Transactional Interpretation of Quantum mechanics (TIQM). His argument scrutinizes Bohr's complementarity in favor of TIQM. We analyze this experiment by simulation using the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics [3] and find that it agrees with the wave particle duality relation given by Englert, Greenberg and Yasin (E-G-Y) [4, 5]. We conclude that the use of Afshar's experiment to provide a testbed for quantum mechanical interpretations is limited.