Extreme beam attenuation in double-slit experiments: Quantum and subquantum scenarios

We show that during stochastic beam attenuation in double slit experiments, there appear unexpected new effects for transmission factors below 10-4, which can eventually be observed with the aid of weak measurement techniques. These are denoted as quantum sweeper effects, which are characterized by the bunching together of low counting rate particles within very narrow spatial domains. We employ a „superclassical“ modeling procedure which we have previously shown to produce predictions identical with those of standard quantum theory. Thus it is demonstrated that in reaching down to ever weaker channel intensities, the nonlinear nature of the probability density currents becomes ever more important. We finally show that the resulting unexpected effects nevertheless implicitly also exist in standard quantum mechanics.

Average trajectory behavior during the „quantum sweeper effect“ for different transmission factors a at the right slit of a double slit setup. („Superclassical“ computer simulation of the sweeper effect)

Gerhard Groessing, Siegfried Fussy, Johannes Mesa Pascasio, Herbert Schwabl
Extreme beam attenuation in double-slit experiments: Quantum and subquantum scenarios
Ann. Phys. 353 (2015) 271-281
quant-ph/arXiv:1406.1346