Single-Particle Diffraction and Interference at a Macroscopic Scale

Yves Couder and Emmanuel Fort
Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 154101 – Published 13 October 2006

Abstract

A droplet bouncing on a vertically vibrated bath can become coupled to the surface wave it generates. It thus becomes a "walker" moving at constant velocity on the interface. Here the motion of these walkers is investigated when they pass through one or two slits limiting the transverse extent of their wave. In both cases a given single walker seems randomly scattered. However, diffraction or interference patterns are recovered in the histogram of the deviations of many successive walkers. The similarities and differences of these results with those obtained with single particles at the quantum scale are discussed.

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  • Received 13 July 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.154101

©2006 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Yves Couder1,* and Emmanuel Fort2,†

  • 1Matières et Systèmes Complexes and Laboratoire de Physique Statistique (ENS), Université Paris 7 Denis Diderot, CNRS-UMR 7057, 4 Place Jussieu, 75 251 Paris Cedex 05, France
  • 2Laboratoire Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques and Laboratoire de Physique du Solide (ESPCI), Université Paris 7 Denis Diderot, CNRS-UMR 7162, 4 Place Jussieu, 75 251 Paris Cedex 05, France

  • *Email address: couder@physique.ens.fr
  • Email address: emmanuel.fort@espci.fr

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Issue

Vol. 97, Iss. 15 — 13 October 2006

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