WignerDistributionfortheTripleSlitExperiment

FrankRioux
Thequantummechanicalinterpretationofthetripleslitexperimentisthatpositionismeasuredatthe
slitscreenandmomentumismeasuredatthedetectionscreen.Positionandmomentumareconjugate
observablesconnectedbyaFouriertransformandgovernedbytheuncertaintyprinciple.Knowingthe
slitscreengeometrymakesitpossibletocalculatethemomentumdistributionatthedetectionscreen.
Theslitscreengeometryandthereforethecoordinatewavefunctionismodeledasasuperpositionof
threeGaussianfunctions.
+ x ( ) exp 4 x 3 ( )
2

exp 4 x
2

( )
+ exp 4 x 3 + ( )
2

+ :=
10 5 0 5 10
Position
+ x ( )
x
ThecoordinatewavefunctionisFouriertransformedintomomentumspacetoyieldthediffraction
pattern.Notethatthiscalculationisinagreementwiththeexpectationthatthenumberofminor
maximaappearingbetweenthemajormaximaisgivenbythenumberofslitsminus2.
u p ( )
1
2t
6
6
x exp i p x ( ) + x ( )
(
(
]
d :=
6 4 2 0 2 4 6
u p ( )
( )
2
p
TheWignerfunctionisaphasespacedistributionthatisobtainedbytheFouriertransformofeitherthe
coordinateormomentumwavefunction.Weusethecoordinatewavefunction.
W x p , ( )
1
t
3
2

s + x
s
2
+
|

\
|
|
.
exp i s p ( ) + x
s
2

\
|
|
.

(
(
(
]
d :=
N 100 := i 0 N .. := x
i
4
8i
N
+ := j 0 N .. := p
j
6
12 j
N
+ := Wigner
i j ,
W x
i
p
j
, ( ) :=
Wigner
TheWignerdistributionisfrequentlycalledaquasiprobabilitydistributionbecause,ascanbeseenin
thedisplayabove,itcanhavenegativevalues.IntegrationoftheWignerfunctionwithrespectto
momentumrecoversthecoordinatewavefunctionandintegrationwithrespecttopositionyieldsthe
momentumwavefunction.
+
w
x ( )
6
6
p W x p , ( )
(
(
]
d := x 5 4.98 , 5 .. := u
w
p ( )
5
5
x W x p , ( )
(
(
]
d := p 6 5.98 , 6 .. :=
+
w
x ( )
x
u
w
p ( )
p