Abstract
The concept of wave-particle duality, which is a key element of quantum theory, has been remarkably found to manifest itself in several experimental realizations as in the famous double-slit experiment. In this specific case, a single particle seems to travel through two separated slits simultaneously. Nevertheless, it is never possible to measure it in both slits, which naturally appears as a manifestation of the collapse postulate. In this respect, one could as well ask if it is possible to “perceive” the presence of the particle at the two slits simultaneously, once its collapse could be avoided. In this article, we use the recently proposed entanglement mediation protocol to provide a positive answer to this question. It is shown that a photon which behaves like a wave, i.e., which seems to be present in two distant locations at the same time, can modify two existing physical realities in these locations. Calculations of the “weak trace” left by such photon also enforce the validity of the present argumentation.
Highlights
Mach-Zehnder-like apparatuses, sharing two central beam splitters, BS4 and BS5
It is argued that a single photon can modify two remote physical realities simultaneously, in the sense we described above
We analyze the behavior of a group of photons which are sent one-by-one through an apparatus with two possible paths and demonstrate, with basis on the outcomes of the entanglement mediation protocol and the weak traces that the photons leave, that they always pass through both paths simultaneously
Summary
If we substitute BS4 and BS5 by mirrors, in virtue of the six possible reflections at the secondary devices, the evolution of the photons at this point of the experiment would be naturally given by. I → −i I , which is different from the result of Eq [7] The reason for this difference is that by positioning the central beam splitters rather than mirrors, and ignoring the cases in which two photons exit one of the apparatuses, one necessarily excludes all the possibilities that could cause the bunching effect, as performed in. Once photon 2 is destroyed by detection, we are left with photons 1 and 3 in the singlet state: Ψ− = In part, it concludes the entanglement mediation protocol.
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