Event-by-event simulation of (quantum) optics experiments
Recent advances in nanotechnology are paving the way to attain control over individual microscopic objects. The ability to prepare, manipulate, couple and measure single microscopic systems facilitate the study of single quantum systems at the level of individual events. Such experiments address the most fundamental aspects of quantum theory. One of those aspects is particle-wave duality, a concept of quantum theory that attributes to photons (light quanta) the properties of both wave and particle behavior depending upon the circumstances of the experiment. Together with the Computational Physics group of Groningen we have developed a systematic, modular procedure to construct locally causal, classical (non-Hamiltonian) dynamical systems that can be used for a deterministic or pseudo-random (unpredictable) event-by-event simulation of real-time quantum phenomena, such as quantum interference (double-slit and two-beam experiments, Mach-Zehnder interferometer experiments), universal quantum computation, quantum eraser. Our simulation approach allows the modeling of nanoscale processes on the level of individual events without using concepts of quantum theory.
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