Double-slit interference pattern from single-slit screen and its gravitational analogues

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel double-slit experiment variant that produces interference patterns from a single-slit screen, exploring its implications through geodesic mechanics and gravitational analogues.

Contribution

It introduces a new version of the double-slit experiment that challenges traditional understanding and connects quantum interference with gravitational analogues using general relativity.

Findings

Interference pattern observed from single-slit setup.

Geodesic mechanics explains the route change of photons.

Analogies drawn with gravitational effects in general relativity.

Abstract

The double slit experiment (DSE) is known as an important cornerstone in the foundations of physical theories such as Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity. A large number of different variants of it were designed and performed over the years. We perform and discuss here a new verion with the somewhat unexpected results of obtaining interference pattern from single-slit screen. This outcome, which shows that the routes of the photons through the array were changed, leads one to discuss it, using the equivalence principle, in terms of geodesics mechanics. We show using either the Brill's version of the canonical formulation of general relativity or the linearized version of it that one may find corresponding and analogous situations in the framework of general relativity.