Active roles of Poynting vectors & π-phase shift in observing the superposition outputs through a Mach-Zehnder interferometer
ORAL
Abstract
A Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) can generate fringes in two different modes. In the spatial fringe mode, two beams are aligned on the final beam combiner (BC), as spatially coincident, but with the beam-Poynting vectors set at a small angle. A CCD camera on either one of the output beams will execute the square modulus of the sum of the two complex amplitudes & generate the spatial cosine fringes. This is intrinsically a quantum process. The BC behaves as a fixed beam splitter. In the scanning-fringe mode, the two Poynting vectors for the two output beam-pairs, are made collinear. The fringes are displayed in the time domain on a dual-beam scope by opto-mechanically scanning one of the two MZI mirrors. The scanning sine & cosine fringes demonstrate the continuous re-direction of intensities from one port to the other port, underscoring the conservation of the total intensity. The classical transmitting and reflecting parameters of the BC execute the generation of the time-varying beam intensity re-direction depending upon the relative amplitudes and the two phases – the variable scanned phase and the fixed π-phase by the external boundary reflection of the BC. The educational lesson is this: In the scanning mode, the superposition energy re-direction is engendered by the classical boundary layer of the BC, not by any quantum phenomenon. Within the same generic superposition phenomenon, different physical light-matter interaction processes generate different kinds of cosine fringes.
–
Publication: 1. C. Roychoudhuri, "Differentiating the Superposition Principle from the Measurable Superposition Effects in Interferometry", a Chapter in the book, "Interferometry", Ed. Bhowmik, ITECH, 2019. https://www.intechopen.com/books/interferometry-recent-developments-and-contemporary-applications/differentiating-the-superposition-principle-from-the-measurable-superposition-effects-in-interferome<br>2. C. Roychoudhuri, "Demonstration and implications when 50% beam combiners can behave as 0% or 100% reflector/transmitter inside some interferometers", 14th Conference on Education and Training in Optics and Photonics: Proc. of SPIE Vol. 10452, 104521C; ed. Xi-Cheng Zhang; 2017.<br>3. C. Roychoudhuri, Ch.xx, "Causal Physics: Photon by Non-Interaction of Waves", Taylor and Francis, 2014.<br>4. C. Roychoudhuri, "The Locality of the Superposition Principle Is Dictated by Detection Processes", Physics Essays, Vol.19, No.3, 2006.<br>
