Are optics’ & QM’s double slit experiments fundamentally the same?

[aletheia]

TL;DR

Do the quantum and the classical wave interference pattern represent the same physical reality?

Has this question been explicitly discussed in the quantum-foundations literature?

Classical optics:
I(x) ∝ |E₁(x) + E₂(x)|²

Single-quantum case:
P(x) ∝ |ψ₁(x) + ψ₂(x)|²

What appears statistically in QM is the same interference structure from wave optics?

The most recent papers approaching this matter that I could find were:
C. J. Villas-Boas et al., “Bright and Dark States of Light: The Quantum Origin of Classical Interference,” Physical Review Letters 134, 133603 (2025).
J.-J. Cheng et al., “Quantum origin of diffraction from bright and dark states,” Physical Review A 113, 052201 (2026).

The first derives classical interference from a quantum description involving collective bright and dark states of light.

The second extends this framework to diffraction and explicitly describes it as connecting quantum and classical wave optics.

So, is there an interpretation or quantum-optical framework that explicitly addresses this issue?

References to papers or authors addressing this question would be appreciated.

 

[PeterDonis]

Do the quantum and the classical wave interference pattern represent the same physical reality?

I'm not sure what this question even means.

In actual experiments, there is no such thing as "quantum interference pattern" vs. "classical interference pattern". There is just the interference pattern which is observed. The light doesn't know whether it's "quantum" or "classical". It just does what it does.

In terms of theory, since the classical theory is simply an approximation to the quantum theory, we would expect both to make the same predictions for what we would observe, in any experiment for which the classical theory is a good approximation. This includes double slit experiments where the light intensity is high enough that we cannot distinguish individual photon impacts on the detector.

The classical theory, however, cannot explain why, when the intensity of the light source is very low, we can distinguish individual photon impacts on the detector--individual dots--that build up an interference pattern over time. For that case, the classical theory breaks down--it makes wrong predictions.

I don't know if any of this is what you mean by "represent the same physical reality". But that's the physics.