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An Interferometer as a Quantum Mechanical Signal Measurement System

-- Mike | March 27, 2023

Question:

With a VLA with large distances between antennas how do you capture the phase difference of a single quantum photon since a photon is emitted from a single point far away and arrives as a single point photon; to a single antenna and not “split” into multiple identical photons ??

I’m viewing this as a quantum mechanical process and not via the classical Maxwell field theory.

-- Mike

Answer:

I think that the key fact is that the traditional Maxwellian electromechanical (EM) wave interfering with itself after traveling along multiple paths, then subsequently being measured by multiple antennas in an interferometer, like the VLA, translates exactly to a quantum mechanical description of one photon interfering with itself. I believe that in the quantum mechanical case the single photon is detected by the multiple antennas which comprise the interferometer just like an EM wave, wherein the phase difference between the received photon/EM wave can be measured.

-- Jeff Mangum

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