Coherence, Interference and Visibility

The interference observed for a quanton, traversing more than one path, is believed to characterize its wave nature. Conventionally, the sharpness of interference has been quantified by its visibility or contrast, as defined in optics. Based on this visibility, wave-particle duality relations have...

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Main Author: Tabish Qureshi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Quanta 2019-06-01
Series:Quanta
Online Access:https://dankogeorgiev.com/ojs/index.php/quanta/article/view/46
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author Tabish Qureshi
author_facet Tabish Qureshi
author_sort Tabish Qureshi
collection DOAJ
description The interference observed for a quanton, traversing more than one path, is believed to characterize its wave nature. Conventionally, the sharpness of interference has been quantified by its visibility or contrast, as defined in optics. Based on this visibility, wave-particle duality relations have been formulated for two-path interference. However, as one generalizes the situation to multi-path interference, it is found that conventional interference visibility is not a good quantifier. A recently introduced measure of quantum coherence has been shown to be a good quantifier of the wave nature. The subject of quantum coherence, in relation to the wave nature of quantons and to interference visibility, is reviewed here. It is argued that coherence can be construed as a more general form of interference visibility, if the visibility is measured in a different manner, and not as contrast. Quanta 2019; 8: 24–35.
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spelling doaj-art-eae97d0829d04208b536ead49d3bc5212025-08-20T02:37:36ZengQuantaQuanta1314-73742019-06-01810.12743/quanta.v8i1.8746Coherence, Interference and VisibilityTabish Qureshi0Jamia Millia Islamia The interference observed for a quanton, traversing more than one path, is believed to characterize its wave nature. Conventionally, the sharpness of interference has been quantified by its visibility or contrast, as defined in optics. Based on this visibility, wave-particle duality relations have been formulated for two-path interference. However, as one generalizes the situation to multi-path interference, it is found that conventional interference visibility is not a good quantifier. A recently introduced measure of quantum coherence has been shown to be a good quantifier of the wave nature. The subject of quantum coherence, in relation to the wave nature of quantons and to interference visibility, is reviewed here. It is argued that coherence can be construed as a more general form of interference visibility, if the visibility is measured in a different manner, and not as contrast. Quanta 2019; 8: 24–35. https://dankogeorgiev.com/ojs/index.php/quanta/article/view/46
spellingShingle Tabish Qureshi
Coherence, Interference and Visibility
Quanta
title Coherence, Interference and Visibility
title_full Coherence, Interference and Visibility
title_fullStr Coherence, Interference and Visibility
title_full_unstemmed Coherence, Interference and Visibility
title_short Coherence, Interference and Visibility
title_sort coherence interference and visibility
url https://dankogeorgiev.com/ojs/index.php/quanta/article/view/46
work_keys_str_mv AT tabishqureshi coherenceinterferenceandvisibility