📝 SummarXiv

Abstract

The dual wave-particle nature of quantum objects is a notoriously unintuitive feature of quantum theories. However, it is often deemed essential, due to otherwise discrete particles exhibiting diffraction and interference. Troublingly, Land\'{e} and L\'{e}vy-Leblond have shown that de Broglie wavelengths are not relativistically covariant as simultaneous spatial structures, making any such wave properties physically inconsistent. In this work, we explore whether modern experiments vindicate an alternative view: that apparent waviness in diffraction and interference scenarios emerges as a consequence of quantised interactions between particles. Such a view has historically received very little attention, despite being the exact modern explanation of both the Kapitza-Dirac effect and ultrafast electron diffraction. We then study a photon orbital angular momentum realisation of the double slit to prove this explanation capable of unifying barrier and phase-grating diffraction phenomena. Finally, we demonstrate that the quantum formalism demands that particle momentum is determined at the point of scattering, contravening wave accounts of quantum interference.