Destructive interferences results in bosons anti bunching: refining Feynman’s argument

The effect of boson bunching is frequently mentioned and discussed in the literature. This effect is the manifestation of bosons tendency to “travel” in clusters. One of the core arguments for boson bunching was formulated by Feynman in his well-known lecture series and has been frequently used ever...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The European physical journal. D, Atomic, molecular, and optical physics Atomic, molecular, and optical physics, 2014, Vol.68 (9), Article 243
Main Authors: Marchewka, Avi, Granot, Er’el
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applications of Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos Theory
Atomic
Classical and quantum physics: mechanics and fields
Exact sciences and technology
Molecular
Optical and Plasma Physics
Physical Chemistry
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Quantum Information Technology
Quantum mechanics
Quantum Physics
Regular Article
Spectroscopy/Spectrometry
Spintronics
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Summary:The effect of boson bunching is frequently mentioned and discussed in the literature. This effect is the manifestation of bosons tendency to “travel” in clusters. One of the core arguments for boson bunching was formulated by Feynman in his well-known lecture series and has been frequently used ever since. By comparing the scattering probabilities of two bosons and of two distinguishable particles, he concluded: “We have the result that it is twice as likely to find two identical Bose particles scattered into the same state as you would calculate assuming the particles were different ” [R.P. Feynman, R.B. Leighton, M. Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics: Quantum mechanics (Addison-Wesley, 1965)]. This argument was rooted in the scientific community (see for example [C. Cohen-Tannoudji, B. Diu, F. Laloë, Quantum Mechanics (John Wiley & Sons, Paris, 1977); W. Pauli, Exclusion Principle and Quantum Mechanics , Nobel Lecture (1946)]), however, while this sentence is completely valid, as is proved in [C. Cohen-Tannoudji, B. Diu, F. Laloë, Quantum Mechanics (John Wiley & Sons, Paris, 1977)], it is not a synonym of bunching. In fact, as it is shown in this paper, wherever one of the wavefunctions has a zero, bosons can anti-bunch and fermions can bunch. It should be stressed that zeros in the wavefunctions are ubiquitous in Quantum Mechanics and therefore the effect should be common. Several scenarios are suggested to witness the effect.
ISSN:1434-6060
1434-6079
DOI:10.1140/epjd/e2014-50391-0