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J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 79 (2010) 074401 (14 pages)  |Previous Article| |Next Article|  |Table of Contents|
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Corpuscular Model of Two-Beam Interference and Double-Slit Experiments with Single Photons

Fengping Jin1, Shengjun Yuan2, Hans De Raedt1, Kristel Michielsen3, and Seiji Miyashita4,5

1Department of Applied Physics, Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, NL-9747AG Groningen, The Netherlands
2Institute of Molecules and Materials, Radboud University of Nijmegen, NL-6525ED Nijmegen, The Netherlands
3Institute for Advanced Simulation, Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Forschungszentrum Jülich, D-52425 Jülich, Germany
4Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
5CREST, JST, Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan

(Received February 9, 2010; Accepted April 22, 2010; Published June 25, 2010)

We introduce an event-based corpuscular simulation model that reproduces the wave mechanical results of single-photon double-slit and two-beam interference experiments and (of a one-to-one copy of an experimental realization) of a single-photon interference experiment with a Fresnel biprism. The simulation comprises models that capture the essential features of the apparatuses used in the experiment, including the single-photon detectors recording individual detector clicks. We demonstrate that incorporating in the detector model, simple and minimalistic processes mimicking the memory and threshold behavior of single-photon detectors is sufficient to produce multipath interference patterns. These multipath interference patterns are built up by individual particles taking one single path to the detector where they arrive one-by-one. The particles in our model are not corpuscular in the standard, classical physics sense in that they are information carriers that exchange information with the apparatuses of the experimental set-up. The interference pattern is the final, collective outcome of the information exchanges of many particles with these apparatuses. The interference patterns are produced without making reference to the solution of a wave equation and without introducing signalling or non-local interactions between the particles or between different detection points on the detector screen. ©2010 The Physical Society of Japan

URL: http://jpsj.ipap.jp/link?JPSJ/79/074401/
DOI: 10.1143/JPSJ.79.074401


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