- #1
Agrippa
- 78
- 10
I have two questions about the following type of scenario:
We have a laser sending photons through the usual double slit apparatus giving us the usual interference pattern, except that now we introduce some physical matter (that are not photons) that the photons will interact with before going through the double slit apparatus. The only assumption I want to make about this introduced physical matter and the nature of the interactions is that the photons will become entangled with that physical matter before those photons make it to the double slit apparatus.
Question (1): will the fact that the photons entangled with that matter destroy the interference pattern? I suspect it might, since I think (think) the reason why large molecules (larger than buckyballs) don't exhibit interference effects in the double slit experiment, is because they entangle with air molecules. However, I'm not sure: is this a matter of degree? Does just "a little bit of entanglement" (for each photon that makes it to the apparatus) only make a little bit of difference to the pattern? If so, is there a rigorous definition of "a little bit of entanglement"? Is there a measure of "how much" entanglement with the environment destroys the interference completely?
Question (2): if the answer to (1) is that we still get (some amount of) the interference pattern, then is it the case that affecting the introduced physical matter can affect the shape of the interference pattern? Here, by "affecting the introduced matter", I mean changing their states in some way without collapsing them.
Any insights here would be greatly appreciated!
We have a laser sending photons through the usual double slit apparatus giving us the usual interference pattern, except that now we introduce some physical matter (that are not photons) that the photons will interact with before going through the double slit apparatus. The only assumption I want to make about this introduced physical matter and the nature of the interactions is that the photons will become entangled with that physical matter before those photons make it to the double slit apparatus.
Question (1): will the fact that the photons entangled with that matter destroy the interference pattern? I suspect it might, since I think (think) the reason why large molecules (larger than buckyballs) don't exhibit interference effects in the double slit experiment, is because they entangle with air molecules. However, I'm not sure: is this a matter of degree? Does just "a little bit of entanglement" (for each photon that makes it to the apparatus) only make a little bit of difference to the pattern? If so, is there a rigorous definition of "a little bit of entanglement"? Is there a measure of "how much" entanglement with the environment destroys the interference completely?
Question (2): if the answer to (1) is that we still get (some amount of) the interference pattern, then is it the case that affecting the introduced physical matter can affect the shape of the interference pattern? Here, by "affecting the introduced matter", I mean changing their states in some way without collapsing them.
Any insights here would be greatly appreciated!