arXiv · cond-mat/0506439
Chaos, Coherence and the Double-Slit Experiment
Abstract
We investigate the influence that classical dynamics has on interference patterns in coherence experiments. We calculate the time-integrated probability current through an absorbing screen and the conductance through a doubly connected ballistic cavity, both in an Aharonov-Bohm geometry with forward scattering only. We show how interference fringes in the probability current generically disappear in the case of a chaotic system with small openings, and how they may persist in the case of an integrable cavity. Simultaneously, the typical, sample dependent amplitude of the flux-sensitive part $g(ϕ)$ of the conductance survives in all cases, and becomes universal in the case of a chaotic cavity. In presence of dephasing by fluctuations of the electric potential in one arm of the Aharonov-Bohm loop, we find an exponential damping of the flux-dependent part of the conductance, $g(ϕ) \propto \exp[-τ_{\rm L}/τ_ϕ]$, in term of the traversal time $τ_{\rm L}$ through the arm and the dephasing time $τ_ϕ$. This extends previous works on dephasing in ballistic systems to the case of many conducting channels.
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Philippe Jacquod. 2005-09-28. Chaos, Coherence and the Double-Slit Experiment. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.72.056203
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