Cavity effects in Double Slit experiments in Walker Systems

An article in Quanta Magazine has made quite a stir in the walker community.  The evidence DOOMS any hope for realism in quantum mechanics.

Doomed We tell you!

The gist of the argument centers around the double slit experiment in analog walker systems. In a nutshell it throws considerable FUD on the original paper by Couder and Fort, at the Parisian Langevin, who first reported results of interference patterns on double slit experiments some 10 years ago. The article claims they may have been quick to declare victory. The insinuation that there may have been fraud on the part of Fort and Couder is in really bad taste and we will pass in silence on that journalistic faux pas.  

No replication of Double slit
The problem is that bona fide attempts by teams such as Bush's lab at MIT and others such as Batelaan (Nebraska) and Bohr III have failed to reproduce the effects reported in the original Nature article.

Disclosure

I work with both the MIT team and the Langevin team.  I presented the results detailed in the blog below on Bell inequalities in walker systems at HQA18 this summer (Dan Harris).  I financially sponsor and help design protocol for a real life experiment of Bell violations in walkers, at the Langevin in Paris.  We do this experiment with Samuel Bernardet (dotwave.org) at the helm of the experimental rig under the supervision of Fort.  We want to reproduce violation of Bell inequalities in walker systems.  I can test the claims of the article in software simulations I developed and operate.  The hypothesis tested here is whether we can indeed reproduce the double slit experiment in walkers!?  and with what set of assumptions?  The results from the simulation are reported below. 

A walker: A dynamic duo of self wave and particle (MIT/Bush)

A walker: self wave
What we call a walker is a dual system, wave AND particle.  The walker self generated wave is a standing wave. Does this self wave suffice to explain some of QM behavior?

Simulation hypothesis: Low amplitude cavity wave as self wave

In my simulations I start from a walker going one way along the center axis. I model the slits with two static standing waves of Bessel across the path.   Essentially we have a static background, like a corrugated sheet, on which we send walkers.  The first approximation is that we consider the low amplitude regime of the static slits a test case for the even lower amplitude mirror images of the self wave on the slits.


No interference pattern (low amplitude)

No interference at low amplitude 

The main result of my simulations is that this low amplitude even with a static signal is NOT enough to recreate an interference pattern.  Since self wave would be even lower (and transient) than the static cavity wave we model here, we conclude that self wave is not enough.  In that scenario, interference patterns DO NOT appear. To be sure there is a interference pattern in the field,  but the strength of it is not enough to dominate the output statistics of the walkers (in my simulations).  The outcome position distribution is seen as one peak. 

Emergence of interference (High amplitude)

 As we increase the amplitude of the standing wave, we send walkers on a preformed canvas with greater amplitude signal and have enough of a signal in the field itself to create a clear interference pattern in the outcome. The dynamics of the walkers on this background field DO create the proper interference pattern in their outcome statistics as seen below. They emerge as we increase the amplitude.

Cavity effects. 

Clear cavity field signal (sam BB/Langevin)

And there is the most interesting part of the simulation. When we include a clear static field signal we get the double slit interference.  In this present scenario, the walls are emitting a strong standing wave signal (large amplitude) see picture.  It was pointed out that, in the original experiment by Couder and Fort, the submerged walls were made of rubber and vibrating with the bath.  It was at first thought undesirable and most of the subsequent experiments went in the direction of removing these effects so as to isolate the self wave effects as sole responsible for the outcome.    We also noted that the transition form from low to high amplitude resembles the original Couder and Fort data-set (not included here).  Could it be that the regime they were looking at was transitional? When Bush, Batelann, Bohr et al did their fine tuned experiments, by removing cavity effects as much as possible, it led to a loss of the interference patterns.   In essence we propose to purposefully induce cavity effects into the bath and observe the dynamics of the walkers on such amplitude varying background. 

Protocol for experiment, update on Langevin 

We are in the midst of an experiment at the Langevin based on the simulations of Bell, as detailed below.  We recently discussed working on double slit with and without wall signaled detailed above. We hope to learn something about the necessary ingredients necessary to see an interference pattern.  Do we recover an interference pattern as we increase the amplitude of static cavity signals that include a slit?!

Parallel with Bell

In the Bell study, we do arrive at a similar conclusion with respect to the necessity for static cavity signals. Namely in Bell the "measures" emit their own cavity signals (which was modeled across the bath by a standing Bessel wave and we will implement as air jets on the surface of walkers.  Remove the cavity signal and we lose the effects (both Bell and Double Slit).  Add the cavity signal, as a standing background guiding wave and we (trivially) recover both effects in walkers.  Of course a negative result isn't philosophically the end of the road and we still could observe the interference on self-wave alone even though is seems less likely.   I find the double slit a much more direct and convincing experiment than the Bell with respect to cavity effects, for we remove the whole mathematical obfuscation of the Bell game and have a simple visual on the presence of interference patterns, in the field (see image) and the outcome. 

Elephants in the Room: there is no magic

I presented the results of Bell in London, and submitted the paper for publication, it was summarily rejected with the comment from a reviewer that I had dared to "admit, that I can't violate Bell without the field cavity signal", well more than admitting it is what I observe.  Similarly some early feedback on the experiment proposed above and below (double slit and Bell) is that 'of course we will see something for we have added a standing cavity signal of interference in the background.'  For some reason this seems to be disqualifying and we would rather see the interference pattern emerge solely out of the self-wave ingredient rather than the more ham fisted cavity signal.  I get it, it's less glamorous this way but still... that is what I see. I short, and to the credit of the article in Quanta Mag, after years spent removing cavity signal, what if we needed to amplify them?

On magical cavity effects in the real thing and Compton

Where I go hmmm is when I think about the analog in matter waves as well as photonic Bell, for one must remember that since Aspect we entertain the interpretation that we have separation of cones of light at the detectors. If the detectors actually emit standing waves then the switch between the different paths of Aspect just chooses between pre-existing backgrounds, we are not dynamically creating them. They exist independently of the switch of the photon path. There is no relativistic paradox for we are dealing with a static standing signal of the cavity. This provide a loophole to Bell as well as allow us to satisfy the Double slit interference.

DeBroglie vs Compton
I personally spend a lot of time meditating about Compton and deBroglie wavelengths and the link between the two. It involves standing waves, Doppler effects, relativistic contraction and beating effects. DeBroglie wavelengths emerge from Compton wavelength via these beating effects, naturally yielding a dependency on momentum, as deBroglie postulated and then himself derived. It should be noted that the beating effect exists in the direction of propagation of the electron.  The shell shows a different beating effect in the transverse direction akin to longitudinal relativistic doppler effect vs transverse relativistic doppler. What we call the deBroglie wavelength is the longitudinal beating (amplitude modulation) of a relativistic standing wave undergoing Doppler contraction. Can we measure precise differences in deBroglie wavelength? If so, can we revisit Michelson-Morley type of experiments (detection of movement in aether)?  The 1888 MM experiments with light interferometry gave us the invariance of the speed of light.  What would the deBroglie interferometry of electron matter waves say? Is it even feasible...

TO THE STARS!?

NASA TM212 observes a anomalous thrust via the establishment of these (EM induced) standing waves of cavity in a truncated pyramid geometry. This effect is un-accounted for in current physics. They invoke the walkers as an explanation.  Oh, the places we will go.