Interference and Distinguishability in Quantum Mechanics
Abstract
Quantitative measures are introduced for the indistinguishability of two quantum states in a given measurement and the amount of interference observable in this measurement. It is shown that these measures obey an inequality which can be seen as an exact formulation of Bohr's claim that one cannot distinguish between two possible paths of a particle while maintaining an interference phenomenon. This formulation is applied to a neutron interferometer experiment of Badurek e.a. It is shown that the formulation is stronger than an argument based on an uncertainty relation for phase and photon number considered by these authors.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/9904003,
title = {Interference and Distinguishability in Quantum Mechanics},
author = {Jos Uffink and Jan Hilgevoord},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/9904003},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
In view of the recent debates in Nature and New Scientist on the question whether Heisenberg's uncertainty relations are strong enough to explain complementarity in a double-slit experiment, we have decided to make this 11 year old paper available as e-print. A few misprints have been corrected and 2 footnotes added