I understood, correct me if I'm wrong, that when you put a detector on the slits, electrons will behave like particles. Is it also true for photons?
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@Charlie No, he asks about the condition of the distance between the slits, I ask about the particle behavior when the photon/electron is observed. – EB97 Nov 06 '23 at 23:52
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Then your question needs to be clearer, exactly what kinds of differences are you after? – Charlie Nov 06 '23 at 23:53
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@Charlie I erased the last sentece if it made the question unclear. Just hoped to get more insights. – EB97 Nov 06 '23 at 23:57
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Here are a couple posts that relate to the particle/wave duality. They don't directly answer your question, but they may help. How can a red light photon be different from a blue light photon? and Does the collapse of the wave function happen immediately everywhere? – mmesser314 Nov 06 '23 at 23:59
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@mmesser314 Doesn't help unfortunately but thanx. – EB97 Nov 07 '23 at 00:32
2 Answers
If you place a single-photon detector behind each slit, only one detector will register a photon for every photon incident on the slits. So yes, the photon behaves as an indivisible particle when one measures the slit through which it passes.
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Photons and electrons are different. Just be aware that photons and electrons are always travelling with their wave properties. And much of their wave property nature is "virtual" ... for example an excited electron in an anode (about to be emitted itself) or in an excited atom (about to emit a photon) are already strongly interacting with the EM field long before their emissions occur.
An electrons virtually influenced path can be messed up after the slit by forcing it to reflect a photon ... it does not lose its wave properties it just gets new orders from the EM field .... thereby losing the effect of the double slit.
A photon however can only be absorbed if you want to detect it .... and poof its gone. Weak interaction is a method to observe many photons and try and get information about path by statistical means.
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