double-slit

[ydoaPs]

if you run the double-slit experiment for a little while then put additional detectors in the beam of electrons/photons/whatever to where the particles are detected and can still pass through the slits, what kind of pattern is the result? is it interference, or particle?

[Ophiolite]

I don't understand exactly what change you have made to the standard experiment. Please be more precise.

[ydoaPs]

if you have additional detectors, you know which path the electro/photon/whatever took, so there is no interference of probability waves, for they have collapsed. but what if you wait to put the detectors in?

[Ophiolite]

I wasn't clear in my request for clarification. I meant, where are you putting the additional detectors?

Edit: especially relative to the slit and the original detectors.

[ydoaPs]

behind the slit.

 

i did a little reading since i started this thread and found out it is pretty much like the delayed-choice experiment by wheeler. the result would be a particle pattern.

 

what if instead of a exposure plate, a screen similar to a television screen were used? the pattern would be watched before and after the detector was turned on. would delayed choice still work and it be particle, or would it be interference until the other detector is activated?

[Ophiolite]

Right. I understand what you are getting at now. I still don't know the answer. Just wanted to use your query to try to get my head round the concepts inherent in the experiment. If I arrive at a meaningful conclusion before someone who actually understands answers, then I'll post.

[ydoaPs]

do you know how i could build such an experiment? i figure i could modify an old television set, but how could i build a detector that would be able to allow the electrons to still pass through?

[CPL.Luke]

I think the only way you could do it would e to use high energy electrons so that the electron could ionize the elements in the detector but would continue passing through.

however then your altering the path of the electron through the detector in an unpredictable fashion and would screw up any results you would have come up with

 

however the wavelenth of the electron will then decrease (correct?) and the two slit experiment would be harder to pull of in the first place. however I think a similar experiment has already been performed somewhere (can't remember the results)

 

however if you managed to pull off this experiment, I think you would find that you have a wave pattern until you turned on the detecectors and then you would get the classical result.