Diffraction in Time

In a previous note a dynamical description of resonance scattering was given, and transient terms appeared in the wave function describing the process. To understand the physical significance of these terms, the transient effects that appear when a shutter is opened are discussed in this paper. For a nonrelativistic beam of particles, the transient current has a close mathematical resemblance with the intensity of light in the Fresnel diffraction by a straight edge. This is the reason for calling the transient phenomena by the name of diffraction in time.

The shutter problem is discussed for particles whose wave functions satisfy the Schrödinger equation, the ordinary wave equation, and the Klein-Gordon equation. Only for the Schrödinger time-dependent equation do the transient wave functions resemble the solutions that appear in Sommerfeld's theory of diffraction. The connection of transient phenomena with the time-energy uncertainty relation, and the interpretation of the transient current in a scattering process, are briefly discussed. The relativistic wave functions for the shutter problem may play an important role in the dynamical description of a relativistic scattering process.