Double-Slit Experiment in Time, Not Space

TheMatt writes "Thomas Young's double-slit experiment is a classic experiment that helped establish the wave-like nature of light. Since then, it has been done with atoms, buckyballs, and biomolecules. It has even been seen in a single molecule, and the single electron version was voted the most beautiful experiment by Physics World readers (covered previously on Slashdot). Now, PhysicsWeb is reporting that Gerhard Paulus and coworkers have conducted the double-slit experiment using a double-slit in time, not space. The "slit" was a crafted femtosecond pulse consisting of one-and-a-half cycles--say, two maxima and one minima--passed through an argon gas. Each maxima has a probability of ionizing an argon atom and producing an electron. The electrons were accelerated to a detector which observed an interference pattern since the detector had no idea which maximum produced the electron."

Comments

Interesting

[Husgaard]

I am not a physicist, but a bit interested in stuff like this.

Looks to be that they have redone the classic double-slit experiment in a new variation.

Instead of having the two slits existing at the same time but in different 3d space, they made the slits in different time, but in same 3d space.

Probably we have the same quantum effect as in the traditional double-slit experiment: When trying to determine which slit the particle passes through the interference pattern goes away, as the waves change change to particles.

It doesn't look to me like they have seen that experimentally yet. Their setup that did not produce the interference pattern looks more like a single-slit to me.

But I think that an attempt to find out at which of the two maxima are ionizing an argon atom should make the interference pattern go away.