5
votes
Accepted
Are loops allowed for paths in the path integral formulation?
Yes, loops are perfectly fine. But we never draw a "typical" path from the path integral anyway.
Formally, the path integral is over the Wiener space of continuous paths (see also this ...
- 122k
3
votes
Accepted
Doubleslit (single slit and a mirror)
Provided that the path length between the two rays does not exceed the coherence length of the light you will see an interference pattern just as if you were using two slits. This is after all just a ...
- 351k
2
votes
Accepted
Does this explanation of wave-particle duality correspond with any existing formal explanation?
You can observe a water wave using light, but there is no analogous way to observe an electromagnetic wave. To observe an EM wave you must take energy out of it, so observing it does indeed affect it.
...
- 1,629
2
votes
Could the double slit experiment demonstrate not that particles behave like waves, but that together particles behave as a wave?
One way to test your idea is to send electrons through the double-slit one at a time. You could send a single electron through once every month, or once every decade. However long we wait between ...
- 1,519
2
votes
Accepted
Explanation of diffraction of a single light ray by Huygens' principle
Huygens principle works when light is treated as a wave. Here, the diffraction patterns arise due to the interference of different points of the wavefront. However, when you talk about a single ray, ...
- 2,010
2
votes
Explanation of diffraction of a single light ray by Huygens' principle
I planned a comment, but after reading the existing ones, I think a direct answer addressing the main conceptual issue could be more appropriate.
There is nothing like a straight-line, one-dimensional ...
2
votes
Localized wavefunction and double slit experiment
A wave function is not a particle. It is a probability amplitude that represents where you are likely to detect the particle and allows us to compute the probability.
Therefore, a wave function is not ...
- 14.2k
2
votes
Double-slit experiment: How do we know the particle effect comes from the nature of light rather than its interaction with the detector?
If this hypothesis was true, we should see that quanta would be
deposited on the detector at the same average rate they were removed
from the source, but there would be no correlation between the ...
- 461
1
vote
Doubleslit (single slit and a mirror)
In principle what better way to produce a coherent sources by having one real source and a mirror image(s) of the real source.
Both sources "emit" waves of the same frequency and provided ...
- 93.4k
1
vote
Do photons behave like particles when observed on the double slit experiment?
Photons and electrons are different. Just be aware that photons and electrons are always travelling with their wave properties. And much of their wave property nature is "virtual" ... for ...
- 2,505
1
vote
Accepted
Do photons behave like particles when observed on the double slit experiment?
If you place a single-photon detector behind each slit, only one detector will register a photon for every photon incident on the slits. So yes, the photon behaves as an indivisible particle when one ...
- 1,519
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible