A matterless double slit
Abstract
Double-slits provide incoming photons with a choice. Those that survive the passage have chosen from two possible paths which interfere to distribute them in a wave-like manner. Such wave-particle duality continues to be challenged and investigated in a broad range of disciplines with electrons, neutrons, helium atoms, C60 fullerenes, Bose-Einstein condensates and biological molecules. All variants have hitherto involved material constituents. We present a matterless double-slit scenario in which photons generated from virtual electron-positron pair annihilation in head-on collisions of a probe laser field with two ultra-intense laser beams form a double-slit interference pattern. Such electromagnetic fields are predicted to induce material-like behaviour in the vacuum, supporting elastic scattering between photons. Our double-slit scenario presents on the one hand a realisable method to observe photon-photon scattering, and demonstrates on the other, the possibility of both controlling light with light and non-locally investigating features of the quantum vacuum's structure.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1301.7038,
title = {A matterless double slit},
author = {B. King and A. Di Piazza and C. H. Keitel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1301.7038},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
Originally submitted 1st July 2009, published 10th January 2010