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METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20261015T181655Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20130903T201746Z
DTSTART:20131001T193000Z
DTEND:20131001T203000Z
UID:event1143@bu.edu
URL:http://physics.bu.edu/internal/events/show/1143
SUMMARY:Two-Slit Diffraction with Highly Charged Particles
DESCRIPTION:Featuring Gordon Baym\, University of Illinois - Urbana Champag
	ne\nHosted by: David Campbell\nPoster: http://physics.bu.edu/posters/2013_F
	all/1001_Baym.pdf\n\nPart of the Physics Department Colloquia Series.\n\nAB
	STRACT: Niels Bohr once suggested a very simple two-slit diffraction experi
	ment with highly charged particles to prove that the consistency of element
	ary quantum mechanics requires the radiation field to be quantized. As this
	 talk will describe in detail\, measurement far from the interference appar
	atus of the electric field of a particle going through the slits yields "wh
	ich path" information\, and thus the diffraction pattern must be destroyed.
	 The key is that as the particle’s trajectory is bent in diffraction by t
	he slits it must radiate and the radiation must carry away phase informatio
	n. Thus the radiation field must be a quantized dynamical degree of freedo
	m. On the other hand\, if one similarly tries to determine the path of a ma
	ssive particle through an interferometer by measuring the Newtonian gravita
	tional potential the particle produces\, the interference pattern would hav
	e to be finer than the Planck length and thus undiscernable. Unlike for the
	 electromagnetic field\, Bohr’s argument does not imply that the gravita
	tional field must be quantized.
LOCATION:SCI 109\, 590 Commonwealth Avenue\, 02215
STATUS:CONFIRMED
CLASS:PUBLIC
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