Cotter Joseph P, Brand Christian, Knobloch Christian, Lilach Yigal, Cheshnovsky Ori, Arndt Markus
Faculty of Physics, Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology, University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Tel Aviv University, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israel.
Sci Adv. 2017 Aug 11;3(8):e1602478. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1602478. eCollection 2017 Aug.
The superposition principle is fundamental to the quantum description of both light and matter. Recently, a number of experiments have sought to directly test this principle using coherent light, single photons, and nuclear spin states. We extend these experiments to massive particles for the first time. We compare the interference patterns arising from a beam of large dye molecules diffracting at single, double, and triple slit material masks to place limits on any high-order, or multipath, contributions. We observe an upper bound of less than one particle in a hundred deviating from the expectations of quantum mechanics over a broad range of transverse momenta and de Broglie wavelength.
叠加原理是光和物质量子描述的基础。最近，许多实验试图使用相干光、单光子和核自旋态直接检验这一原理。我们首次将这些实验扩展到宏观粒子。我们比较了一束大染料分子在单缝、双缝和三缝材料掩模上衍射产生的干涉图样，以限制任何高阶或多路径贡献。在广泛的横向动量和德布罗意波长范围内，我们观察到每一百个粒子中偏离量子力学预期的粒子上限小于一个。
