Testing Quantum Coherence in Stochastic Electrodynamics with Squeezed Schrödinger Cat States

Wayne Huang,Herman Batelaan

doi:10.3390/atoms7020042

Abstract

The interference pattern in electron double-slit diffraction is a hallmark of quantum mechanics. A long-standing question for stochastic electrodynamics (SED) is whether or not it is capable of reproducing such effects, as interference is a manifestation of quantum coherence. In this study, we used excited harmonic oscillators to directly test this quantum feature in SED. We used two counter-propagating dichromatic laser pulses to promote a ground-state harmonic oscillator to a squeezed Schrödinger cat state. Upon recombination of the two well-separated wavepackets, an interference pattern emerges in the quantum probability distribution but is absent in the SED probability distribution. We thus give a counterexample that rejects SED as a valid alternative to quantum mechanics.

Highlights

Over the past decades, there has been sustained interest in developing classical alternatives to quantum mechanics (QM) with the goal of solving the quantum-classical boundary problem.Despite the proposed classical alternatives [1,2,3], there is a lack of quantitative tests of such theories against QM, mostly because analytic solutions to concrete physical systems such as two-level atoms have not been found
Within the stochastic electrodynamics (SED) community, the proposed view of electron diffraction is that the double-slit poses boundary conditions that modify the classical zero-point electromagnetic field, and in turn, it acts as a guiding wave for free electrons [3,5,20,21]
Rather than focusing on the specific theoretical difficulties that are relevant to free electrons, we developed a paradigm that can be used as a direct test for quantum coherence in stochastic electrodynamics

Summary

Introduction

There has been sustained interest in developing classical alternatives to quantum mechanics (QM) with the goal of solving the quantum-classical boundary problem. Within the SED community, the proposed view of electron diffraction is that the double-slit poses boundary conditions that modify the classical zero-point electromagnetic field, and in turn, it acts as a guiding wave for free electrons [3,5,20,21]. The appeal of this idea is that the guiding field can be affected by both slits, while the particle passes through only one slit, similar to the idea that has pushed oil droplet analogues [22,23,24,25,26,27]. The interference pattern is missing in the SED probability distribution

Kapitza–Dirac Force on Harmonic Oscillators

Generation of Squeezed Schrödinger Cat States

Discussion and Conclusions