Pascal Naidon

Quantum theory is often presented as a complete theory (within its domain of validity), meaning that it can give statistical predictions for all possible observations. However, it has been known since the 1950s that a seemingly simple question has no answer within the standard framework of the theory: how long does a particle take to reach a detector? Theorists have of course proposed extensions of the theory predicting arrival time distributions based on reasonable assumptions, but no consensus has been reached. In practice, these distributions coincide in the regime of experiments carried out so far, so that none of these theories could be validated nor ruled out.

This seminar will present a project for measuring arrival times with cold atoms in a regime where the theories predict significantly different distributions. Interestingly, this experiment could also test interpretations of quantum theory based on trajectories, such as Bohmian mechanics, also known as de Broglie’s pilot-wave theory.