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mgiddy911
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I am a High School Senior in Advanced Physics Topics class. We have recently deiscussed the basic double slit experiments and ways of quntum erasing and delaying choices, and how those situation affect the outcome of the screen whether it will show an interference pattern or not.
We then discussed a situation for delayed chice quantum erasing where you have a photon source that is split by a beam splitter, so now there is two possible paths. On each path there is a down converter which sends a signal photon towards a screen and and idle photon towards another splitter. The signal photons go to the screen and the dile photons hit the splitter and have two possible paths each. one path of each idler photon goes to a detector call them (1 and 4), the other path of each photn leads it to one final splitter with each of its possible paths going to a detector( 2 and 3).
the principal is that there's a 50 50 chance that the idler photons will be detected by either detector 1 or 4, if that happens we have which path information and we would not see an interference pattern, but if they are detected by 2 or 3 then we would not have which path information and there would be an interference pattern.
So if you let 100 photons go from the source, then you would just see a jumble on the screen until you took the data from the detectors and figured out which photons were deteted, then you could map them out on the screen and see some formed the interference patttern and others just made their clumps from being detected.
What i was wondering (sorry this took so long) was what would happen if you made the path of the idler photons between the down converter and their beam splitters immensely long, for example from the down converter to the splitter was 99999999 lightyears. Then the signal photons would hit the screen before the idler photon would have a chance to be detected. If you observed the screen before the idler photon could be detected what would you see?
Another idea I had that might change the outcome is what if you built the downconverter so that i received a photon and emitted radioactive nucleii, so that one would go to the screen and the other would go to the splitter. Then there is even less of a chance that the idler nucleii would make it to the detector because they could decay before they got there. So if you had them traveling a long distance again like 999999 lightyears, you could again see the signal nucleii hit the screen before their idler nucleii had the chance to make it to the detector, but this time there is even less of a chance that they could make it to a detector. So how would this set up change the outcome of the screen?
Thank you in advance for all your help, I hope you can understand my post and sorry if it seems rushed but I need to get to class soon
We then discussed a situation for delayed chice quantum erasing where you have a photon source that is split by a beam splitter, so now there is two possible paths. On each path there is a down converter which sends a signal photon towards a screen and and idle photon towards another splitter. The signal photons go to the screen and the dile photons hit the splitter and have two possible paths each. one path of each idler photon goes to a detector call them (1 and 4), the other path of each photn leads it to one final splitter with each of its possible paths going to a detector( 2 and 3).
the principal is that there's a 50 50 chance that the idler photons will be detected by either detector 1 or 4, if that happens we have which path information and we would not see an interference pattern, but if they are detected by 2 or 3 then we would not have which path information and there would be an interference pattern.
So if you let 100 photons go from the source, then you would just see a jumble on the screen until you took the data from the detectors and figured out which photons were deteted, then you could map them out on the screen and see some formed the interference patttern and others just made their clumps from being detected.
What i was wondering (sorry this took so long) was what would happen if you made the path of the idler photons between the down converter and their beam splitters immensely long, for example from the down converter to the splitter was 99999999 lightyears. Then the signal photons would hit the screen before the idler photon would have a chance to be detected. If you observed the screen before the idler photon could be detected what would you see?
Another idea I had that might change the outcome is what if you built the downconverter so that i received a photon and emitted radioactive nucleii, so that one would go to the screen and the other would go to the splitter. Then there is even less of a chance that the idler nucleii would make it to the detector because they could decay before they got there. So if you had them traveling a long distance again like 999999 lightyears, you could again see the signal nucleii hit the screen before their idler nucleii had the chance to make it to the detector, but this time there is even less of a chance that they could make it to a detector. So how would this set up change the outcome of the screen?
Thank you in advance for all your help, I hope you can understand my post and sorry if it seems rushed but I need to get to class soon