Can Wave and Particle Be Separated in a Modified Double-Slit Experiment?

[C. Bernard]

If the 2-slit experiment is modified by adding apartition between the barrier and the electron detector screen, forming 2 compartiments, the particle willgo in one of the slit, but what about the wave? If it slill goes through the 2 slits,will the wave and the particle be separated? If not, how will it know a partition has been added?

 

[Demystifier]

The only interpretation of quantum mechanics that speaks of waves and particles as separate objects is the Bohmian interpretation. See e.g.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0611032

 

[C. Bernard]

Thank you Demystifier,
so if i understood you ,according to the Bohmian theory,in the case i described, using a photon, the particle aspect would go through one slit and the wave aspect through both? So that they would be separated.
Could this be verified experimentally?

 

[PhilDSP]

And also de Broglie's theory (from which Bohmian theory arose). De Broglie, from what I've read, found Bohmian theory interesting but did not necessarily endorse it. Instead he continued to develop and re-think or clarify his own theory.

 

[Demystifier]

Thank you Demystifier,
so if i understood you ,according to the Bohmian theory,in the case i described, using a photon, the particle aspect would go through one slit and the wave aspect through both? So that they would be separated.

Yes.

Could this be verified experimentally?

Yes and no. Namely, the measurable predictions of Bohmian theory are the same as those of standard theory without particle trajectories. Particle trajectories cannot be measured in practice. Namely, if you try to measure trajectory, you must introduce interaction with a measuring apparatus. The interaction disturbs the wave function in a very complicated way, so the resulting trajectory (depending on the wave function) is very different from the trajectory without interaction that you wanted to measure. In fact, it can be shown that the influence of the measuring apparatus is such that the measured trajectory will always look as a classical trajectory, which is a consequence of the fact that a measuring apparatus is always a macroscopic object. But that result can be obtained even without the Bohmian theory. In other words, macroscopic apparatuses cannot distinguish different microscopic interpretations of quantum mechanics. A microscopic apparatus could, in principle, distinguish different interpretations, but in practice there is no such thing as microscopic measuring apparatus.

Another idea is to use a macroscopic apparatus with a very weak interaction, which does not disturb the wave function. Such a measurement is not a true measurement in the usual sense, but when one uses it to measure particle trajectories, one really gets Bohmian trajectories. But still, even standard quantum theory predicts that such a measurement will get Bohmian trajectories, so such a measurement does not prove that the Bohmian interpretation is right. For more details see
https://www.physicsforums.com/blog.php?b=3077