Quantum Institute: Visitor Schedule

The Quantum Lunch is regularly held on Thursdays in the Theoretical Division Conference Room, TA-3, Building 123, Room 121.

The organizing committee includes Malcolm Boshier (P-21), Diego Dalvit (T-4), Michael Di Rosa (C-PCS), Sebastian Deffner (T-4 & CNLS), Changhyun Ryu (P-21) , Nikolai Sinitsyn (T-4), Rolando Somma (T-4), Christopher Ticknor (T-1), and Wojciech Zurek (T-4).

For more information, or to nominate a speaker, contact Sebastian Deffner.

To add your name to the Quantum Lunch email list, contact Ellie Vigil.

Thursday June 18, 2015
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM

Speaker: Herman Batelaan (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

Technical Host: Peter Milonni

TOPIC: Controlled double slit electron diffraction

Abstract
Quantum interference explains the stability of matter, guided the construction of the laser, and led to many applications. So what is this quantum interference about? Feynman considered the double-slit experiments for electrons to contain "the only mystery", insofar as it concerns quantum interference. To get as close to Feynman's description of double-slit diffraction we closed the individual slits on demand (see figure). Following Tonomura's famous interference build-up movie for a biprism wire, we also recorded a movie of the build-up of the diffraction pattern one particle at a time for the double slit. In recent work done in Paris, macroscopic particle-wave duality with bouncing oil droplets was demonstrated for a double slit. This was supposed not to be possible. What does that mean for microscopic or quantum-mechanical particle-wave duality for electrons? This means a lot to an international group of physicists labeled to be a "band of rebels" according to Morgan Freeman's show "Through the Wormhole". However this appears not to be the message presented in the past three years to many high school students through our educational movie "The Challenge of Quantum Reality". In the presentation this issue will be discussed.