Bohmian Mechanics: Towards Illuminating The Quantum Potential

Brown, Matthewadvisor:Resch, Kevin ; affiliation1:Faculty of Science ; Resch, Kevin ;

University of Waterloo

关键词: Master Thesis;   

Others  :  https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/bitstream/10012/13010/1/Brown_Matthew.pdf

瑞士|英语

来源: UWSPACE Waterloo Institutional Repository

【 摘 要 】

This thesis deals with the theoretical and experimental details of trying to understandand infer the quantum potential from Bohmian mechanics using Bohmian trajectories. Inthis work, some of the key components of the history of Bohmian mechanics is given, atheoretical explanation of how to measure the Bohmian potential, followed by an overviewof the experimental apparatus and its components. Some tests of the experimental apparatusare then presented followed by a discussion of the results. Lastly, some interestingfollow up experiments are de ned and discussed.Bohmian mechanics, while completely agreeing with quantum mechanics could not bemore di erent from the standard notions such as the fact that particles retain their classicalidentity of a point like object that have de nite and causal trajectories. In this realm,rstdeveloped by de Broglie, these particles move and are guided by a wave, which turns outto be the wave function itself. Typically, the velocity of the particles anywhere in spaceis given by spatial derivatives of the phase of this wave and the energy content of theparticles is given by the temporal derivative. The trajectories can bend even when thereare no outside (classical) forces that are acting on the objects. This is due to the fact thatthese observations of Bohmian mechanics must conform to the standard measurements inquantum mechanics.One detail that has gone unmeasured (in the sense of inference) in a laboratory setting,is the quantum potential (the mysterious force that moves particle to make sure theyreproduce the measurements of quantum mechanics). Using the technique of measuringthe trajectories of photons, the question was asked, can the quantum potential for singlephotons in the double slit be inferred? A setup has been built in order to try and answer thisquestion using a single photon detecting camera and a heralding spontaneous parametricdown conversion source. Unfortunately, the quantum potential still goes unmeasured dueto noise in the camera pictures destroying the integrity of the signal and an interestingproblem of trying to stitch together the quantum potential at the varying z-planes.