Rethinking a delayed choice quantum eraser experiment: A simple baseball model

摘要

In a double slit experiment, you can see an interference fringe pattern or you can know which slit the photon came through, but not both. There are two diametrically opposite theories about why this happens. One is complementarity. The other is the proposal made in this article. An experiment, published in 2000 [Y.-H. Kim et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 8, 1 (2000)] allegedly supports the idea of complementarity. With different starting assumptions, we arrive at opposite conclusions: complementarity is irrelevant to this experiment. Our assumptions come from the Theory of Elementary Waves. Waves are assumed to travel in the opposite direction: from the detector to the laser. All wave interference is located at the laser. All decisions of importance are located at the laser, not at the detectors. The decisions concern which of several elementary rays a photon chooses to follow (this is a probabilistic decision). If a photon is emitted in response to one such impinging ray, all wave interference is then complete. The photon will follow backwards that ray alone, with a probability of one, back to the pair of detectors from which that ray originated. Based on these assumptions, the experiment has nothing to do with complementarity. There is also no delayed choice and no quantum eraser. Conclusion: complementarity is not the only way to understand this experiment.