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Interference describes different waves superposing to form a resultant wave of greater, lower, or the same amplitude. Normally, it involves interaction of waves that are correlated (coherent) with each other, either because they come from the same source, or because they have the same or nearly the same frequency. Interference effects can be observed with all types of waves, e.g., light, radio, acoustic, surface, or matter waves.

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I'm having trouble figuring out why the max intensity envelop (i.e. single slit intensity peak) would be separated from zero order of the grating, for a blazed transmission grating. In the left ...
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I am new to YDSE (Young's Double Slit Experiment) so kindly bear with me if my question is simple. My professor said that for interference to occur, the two sources must have the same frequency - only ...
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I am considering interference between finite electromagnetic pulses, not continuous plane waves. Pulse 1 travels along the +x direction with a transverse electric field $$\mathbf{E}_1 = +\hat{\mathbf{...
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I recently came across a video on YouTube that shows a really strange optical experiment. In the video, two coherent laser beams are interfered such that a destructive interference point is formed. At ...
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In standard YDSE, if the slits are placed collinear to each other, and are placed parallel to the screen, the pattern observed on the screens are hyperbolic fringes. But if these slits are place ...
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What happens if we prepare superposition of two monochrome sinusoidal beams of light which are exactly the same but have $\pi$ differences in their phases? getting nothing?! $$E_1+E_2 = A\cos(kx-\...
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Let’s suppose there are 2 sound sources with nothing around. The waves they send have opposite phase so in the middle, the wave is constructive and on the other side it’s destructive, like what ...
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It seems both rely on the idea of interaction-free measurements; is the difference in the nature of what they are "measuring"? I understand that they are made to demonstrate different things,...
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In every discussion of classical electromagnetic scattering that I've read - e.g. Jackson and Wikipedia (1 and 2) - the primary quantity that is used to quantify EM scattering is the differential ...
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This question comes from a imagination of mine. If there are 2 laser light sources that are totally the same, which means the amplitude, wavelength, and phase of the two lights are equal. Let’s assume ...
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'Is it possible to conduct a double-slit experiment in such a way that a series of single electrons/photons) hit only the mid-portion of the two-slits and ricochet off (without entering either slit)? ...
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consider the above demonstration, for double slit experiment. In this one, there seem to be two types of "gaps". one, the type of larger (relatively) gaps,(marked as A) and two, smaller gaps ...
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This may seem trivial but hear me out. Wikipedia defines interference as follows: In physics, interference is a phenomenon in which two coherent waves are combined by adding their intensities or ...
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I’m curious whether quantum interference would still occur when using two slits of different shapes – for example, a rectangular slit and a circular slit – rather than the conventional setup with two ...
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Suppose you have some electric source configuration $(\rho_1({\bf x}, t), {\bf J}_1({\bf x}, t))$ (satisfying the continuity equation) that produces a total (time-averaged and angle-summed) radiated ...
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I was reading about the double slit experiment with electrons, where when one fires an electron. There are two slits in the path of an electron and then a screen. From the standpoint of particles, one ...
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Let's consider some linear ideal infinite medium where infinite plane monochromatic wave is propagating. Fluctuations of density cause relative permitivity to fluctuate and proportionally create ...
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Given a double slit experiment with one source of wavelength $\lambda$ shining through one slit and another source with wavelength $\lambda+\Delta\lambda$ shining through the other source, where $\...
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According to the de Broglie relationship, the wavelength of an object is inversely proportional to its mass. As a result, protons possess a smaller wavelength than their constituent quarks and gluons. ...
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I am working on a homework problem that asks me to calculate the visibility in Young's double slit experiment. A monochromatic and linearly polarized light is used in a Young’s double slit experiment....
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In Feynman's QED you compute the probability of detecting a photon by summing up probabilities of all possible paths. However, in a short time after light source is on some of these paths are still ...
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Consider two scenarios of Double Slit experiment. The detectors on the screen have some minimum threshold energy (E_min) to be activated. So, say, I send light. In classical view, I will observe an ...
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This is the link to the Veritasium YouTube video where Derek and his friend show that light indeed explores all the paths. A laser beam is made to fall on a point say $P$ on a reflecting surface at an ...
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I am doing calculations on a double pass interferometer. In this configuration any rotation of the target mirror will result in a walk-off distance between the target and reference beam while keeping ...
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Lately I've been trying my hand at consistent/deconsistent histories. To measure my understanding, I'm trying to apply formalism to concrete cases - in this case, the sacrosanct double-slit experiment....
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I am really confused about the result that we will receive when one of the slits in YDSE is gradually being covered. My assumption is that since the phase difference is the same, the positions of ...
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I have started working through Quantum Mechanics section of the Exercises for the Feynman Lectures on Physics, but I got stuck on one of the questions. The question is about an idealized version of an ...
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In quantum mechanics, we know that: The global phase of a wavefunction does not have any physical effect, but the relative difference in phase ($\Delta \phi$) among different components of the same ...
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For sufficiently distant points, the perpendicular wave displacements add up with the phase difference solely due to the path differences. However, if the waves are longitudinal or transverse and lie ...
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In this interferometer, the photon is interfering with itself. The polarization angles are the same, so the resulting counts display an interference pattern described by the equation: $$P = \frac{1}{2}...
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In the 1948 paper "Space-Time Approach to Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics", Feynman presents his formulation of quantum mechanics in terms of path integrals. I've been reading through it ...
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This question is triggered by a section in the Veritasium video "Infinite Slit Paradox: Something Strange Happens When You Trust QM" about Feynman's path integral that came out on March 5, ...
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In "Quantum Theory and Measurement", Wheeler proposed an interference experiment performed on light rays emanating from a stellar object behind a gravitational lens to demonstrate the "...
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I have a question regarding the following experiment. I wanted to see what a laser beam diffraction behind a grid looks like up close. I chose the following set up: That is, the grid is a combination ...
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In the classic double-slit experiment, photons are observed to create an interference pattern when passing through two slits. However, my hypothesis is that this setup limits the full potential of ...
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According to Wikipedia, the Huygens' principle states that: Every point on a wavefront is itself the source of spherical wavelets, and the secondary wavelets emanating from different points mutually ...
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I was reading about Young's double slit experiment (YDSE) and found that on replacing the monochromatic light source with a white light, the central maxima appears white. This is perfectly true ...
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We are studying the Michelson interferometer in class. Our teacher explained to us that the interference does not occur because of the two parallel rays that emerge from one, but from the resulting ...
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I was solving a question in wave optics based on interference patterns. The question is as follows: In a Young's double slit experiment arrangement, each slit is illuminated with a light containing ...
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I have some troubles in understanding one particular detail concerning double slit experiment: if there is no detector in any slits then after shooting sufficiently many photons (or electrons) on a ...
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In interferometers, such as the Michelson and Mach-Zehnder interferometers, photons seem to not experience two-photon interference but experience single-photon interference; why?
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My understanding is that the Many-Worlds interpretation essentially says that the entire universe is one big wavefunction, and what we interpret as "measurement" or "collapse" is ...
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Text from a book: By carefully cutting a single large crystal of silicon (atomic spacing $a = 5.4 \mathring{A} = 5.4*10^{-8} cm$), it is possible to create a series of atomic-scale diffraction ...
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Recently, I did Melde's Experiment in our lab. To say about the procedure, we had to find the frequency of a electrically vibrating tuning fork (connected to a mass through string over a pulley) as ...
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If two electron diffraction experiments are conducted under exactly the same conditions and are randomly stopped at the same time, will the results be completely identical? That is, will the ...
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10th minima is 1 fringe above 10th maxima , so distance to 10th maxima is 10 lambda D / d So that + width of 1 fringe should hive the distance to 10th minima right? But distance to 10th minima = (10+1/...
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Distance to 10th maxima =10lambda D/d Distance to 10th minima 10.5 lambda D/d So should the fringe width be 0.5 since 10th minima is 0.5 above 10th maxima so shouldn't it be rhe fringe wid th, if not ...
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I know that photons don't directly interact with one another, but in the context of the double slit experiment they can interact to give an interference pattern. This seems like a contradiction to me. ...
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The only formula I learned for intensity of fringes in young's double slit experiment is: $I = 4I_0 \cos^2\left(\frac{\Phi}{2}\right)$ But this would mean that there are infinite bright bands of equal ...
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Suppose I conduct Young's double slit experiment with a beam of light which has two wavelengths, say $\lambda_1$ and $\lambda_2$ (prototypically, $\lambda_1=560 nm, \lambda_2=640nm$). Is it true that ...
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