Phase Space Tomography of Matter-Wave Diffraction in the Talbot Regime

Abstract

We report on the theoretical investigation of Wigner distribution function (WDF) reconstruction of the motional quantum state of large molecules in de Broglie interference. De Broglie interference of fullerenes and as the like already proves the wavelike behaviour of these heavy particles, while we aim to extract more quantitative information about the superposition quantum state in motion. We simulate the reconstruction of the WDF numerically based on an analytic probability distribution and investigate its properties by variation of parameters, which are relevant for the experiment. Even though the WDF described in the near-field experiment cannot be reconstructed completely, we observe negativity even in the partially reconstructed WDF. We further consider incoherent factors to simulate the experimental situation such as a finite number of slits, collimation, and particle-slit van der Waals interaction. From this we find experimental conditions to reconstruct the WDF from Talbot interference fringes in molecule Talbot-Lau interferometry.

16 pages, 9 figures, accepted at New Journal of Physics

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• Measuring measurement
• Colloquium: Quantum interference of clusters and molecules
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• Gauss sum factorization with cold atoms
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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Towards Optomechanical Quantum State Reconstruction of Mechanical Motion
• Observing Power-Law Dynamics of Position-Velocity Correlation in Anomalous Diffusion
• Near-field diffraction of protons by a nanostructured metallic grating under external electric field: Asymmetry and sidebands in Talbot self-imaging