Hoku said:
I appreciate you're input, however, I'm inclined to think you're "missing the point". These points you're making are ones that I've already brought up in a couple different posts in this thread. This quote is the biggest reason I think you've missed the point. This thread isn't based on a "thought problem". I'm just trying to obtain a few simple facts about the DSE.
Even though I'm certain I've made my questions clear, I'll try presenting them one more time.
People say that when you try to see which slit the particle passes through, it interrupts the interference pattern. So, my questions are:
1) Does it interrupt the interference pattern simply because we've made it impossible for interference to occur? For example, making only one slit available thus having no waves to interfere with or altering one wave to be out of sync with the other.
If this is the case, then the big mystery of it "changing states" when we try to see which slit it goes through, seems to be a lot of hype for nothing particularly unusual.
2) If the interruption occurs but there is no logical reason why - in other words, it SHOULD still display interference - then I'm trying to find out exactly what the observational tool is that makes it change states.
I hope, I hope, I hope this makes my questions clear. And I hope even MORE that someone can help me answer them...
It depends on how you define impossible. Certainly you do not have to block one of the slits to observe the destruction of the interference pattern. If your experiment can detect "which path" information in any way, even with both slits always open, then the interference pattern will be destroyed.
This experiment, as with many (all?) QM experiments, is about measuring probabilities of events, and what matters is the context of the experiment
at the moment of detection. You can think about the pattern that you observe as ALWAYS representing the interference of two probability waves: one for the particle passing through the left slit (p
L), and one for the particle passing through the right slit (p
R). If you set up your experiment so that, at the point of detection, there is an equal probability that the particle has passed through either slit (i.e. there is no "which path" information available), then p
L and p
R have equal magnitudes, and you observe the interference pattern. If on the other hand, at the moment of detection, it is possible for you to determine with certainty which path the particle took, then either p
L OR p
R will be 1, and the other will be zero, so you won't see any interference.
A couple of related points:
1) you cannot "trick" the experiment by starting the experiment in one configuration, and changing it suddenly just before detection. This has been proven in the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser (DCQE) experiments ... definitely worth a read if you haven't seen them. There are some very detailed threads here explaining that experiment, so I won't rehash it here.
2) The fact that you are ALWAYS observing an interference pattern is supported by the theory of "weak" measurements. If you bias the experiment, so that at the time of detection, you know that there is a 75% chance that the particle went through one slit, and a 25% chance that it went through the other (instead of 50-50, or 100-0, as discussed above), then you see a reduction in the intensity of the interference pattern, and a build-up of intensity of the "one-slit" pattern for the most likely slit. In other words, you observe a hybrid of the 50-50 and 100-0 cases. Furthermore, by adjusting the bias of the experiment, you can "tune" the result smoothly between the interference pattern and the "which path" result.
Cool huh!