Volume 19: Pages 333-354, 2006
The Locality of the Superposition Principle Is Dictated by Detection Processes
Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri 1
1Physics Department, University of Connecticut, 54 Ahern Lane, Storrs, Conneticut 06269 U.S.A.
Both classical and quantum physics thrive on the superposition principle (SP), yet the former takes it as a local effect and the latter assumes it as a nonlocal phenomenon. We take the SP as a tool to bridge the two worlds into one causal framework by introducing extended interpretations of each of the mathematical symbols and operators representing the photon‐detection equation for the case of various two‐beam interferometer experiments. The experiments dramatize classical locality. The locality argument arises because the recorded energy redistribution due to the superposition of fields is due to real energy exchange through field‐dipole interaction, and not to field‐field interaction. Electromagnetic (EM) fields do not interact with each other in the absence of material dipoles. All quantum‐mechanical interactions are mediated through amplitude‐amplitude stimulation, which is at the root of the SP. The detector dipoles attempt to respond to the sum of all the locally superposed EM fields, if allowed quantum‐mechanically, actualizing the principle of superposition. The energy exchange of the dipoles follows the standard prescription, the ensemble average of the square modulus of all the superposed amplitudes, Σpψ *p·Σqψ q , but for this paper ψ p represents the undulation of the detector dipoles induced by the pth EM field rather than the field itself. The summation is carried out by the dipoles when allowed by their intrinsic quantum properties.
Keywords: locality of superposition principle, locality of interference, reality of superposed fields, reality of energy exchange process, detectors sum effects of superposed fields, finite time of quantum interaction, quantum probability inherent in quantum interactions
Received: September 20, 2004; Published Online: December 15, 2008
