Experimental evidence of non-local quantum forces

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TL;DR

Batelaan et al. have carried out an experiment confirming Shelankov's prediction that the Aharonov-Bohm effect is in fact not dispersionless as thought before due to Zeilinger's results.

Becker et al. 2019, Asymmetry and non-dispersivity in the Aharonov-Bohm effect

Decades ago, Aharonov and Bohm showed that electrons are affected by electromagnetic potentials in the absence of forces due to fields. Zeilinger’s theorem describes this absence of classical force in quantum terms as the “dispersionless” nature of the Aharonov-Bohm effect. Shelankov predicted the presence of a quantum “force” for the same Aharonov-Bohm physical system as elucidated by Berry. Here, we report an experiment designed to test Shelankov’s prediction and we provide a theoretical analysis that is intended to elucidate the relation between Shelankov’s prediction and Zeilinger’s theorem. The experiment consists of the Aharonov-Bohm physical system; free electrons pass a magnetized nanorod and far-field electron diffraction is observed. The diffraction pattern is asymmetric confirming one of Shelankov’s predictions and giving indirect experimental evidence for the presence of a quantum “force”. Our theoretical analysis shows that Zeilinger’s theorem and Shelankov’s result are both special cases of one theorem.

The paper is open access and published in Nature Communications.

 

[vanhees71]

Note that rightfully they set "force" always in quotation marks. Bohmian mechanics is interesting in this context but not necessary to understand the observations and theory of the AB effect.

 

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Did you read the paper? Batelaan's prior work is part of the very literature which incorrectly demonstrated that there were no quantum forces in the AB effect, whether or not the word force is in scare quotes.

He has recently even admitted that his old perspective based upon his prior ignorance of the existence of the quantum potential - no doubt an affliction most experts in QM still suffer from - changed with exposure to the concept.

 

[vanhees71]

Well, I've not analyzed the paper in detail, but I'm pretty sure the AB effect investigated there can be analyzed very well without any reference to Bohmian mechanics and also within QED, which has by construction only local interactions.