Quantum chaos and the double-slit experiment

Abstract

We report on the numerical simulation of the double-slit experiment, where the initial wave-packet is bounded inside a billiard domain with perfectly reflecting walls. If the shape of the billiard is such that the classical ray dynamics is regular, we obtain interference fringes whose visibility can be controlled by changing the parameters of the initial state. However, if we modify the shape of the billiard thus rendering classical (ray) dynamics fully chaotic, the interference fringes disappear and the intensity on the screen becomes the (classical) sum of intensities for the two corresponding one-slit experiments. Thus we show a clear and fundamental example in which transition to chaotic motion in a deterministic classical system, in absence of any external noise, leads to a profound modification in the quantum behaviour.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Decoherence, einselection, and the quantum origins of the classical
• Wigner function statistics in classically chaotic systems

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• Majorization and dynamics of continuous distributions
• Chaotic dephasing in a double-slit scattering experiment
• Ergodic statistical models: entropic dynamics and chaos
• Quantum-classical transition for an analog of double-slit experiment in complex collisions: Dynamical decoherence in quantum many-body systems
• An estimation of the logarithmic timescale in an ergodic dynamics
• An upper bound for the KS-entropy in quantum mixing systems