Wheeler's delayed-choice gedanken experiment with a single atom

A. G. Manning; R. I. Khakimov; R. G. Dall; A. G. Truscott

doi:10.1038/nphys3343

Wheeler's delayed-choice gedanken experiment with a single atom

A. G. Manning, R. I. Khakimov, R. G. Dall, A. G. Truscott^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

85 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The wave-particle dual nature of light and matter and the fact that the choice of measurement determines which one of these two seemingly incompatible behaviours we observe are examples of the counterintuitive features of quantum mechanics. They are illustrated by Wheeler's famous 'delayed-choice experiment, recently demonstrated in a single-photon experiment. Here, we use a single ultracold metastable helium atom in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer to create an atomic analogue of Wheeler's original proposal. Our experiment confirms Bohr's view that it does not make sense to ascribe the wave or particle behaviour to a massive particle before the measurement takes place. This result is encouraging for current work towards entanglement and Bell's theorem tests in macroscopic systems of massive particles.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	539-542
Number of pages	4
Journal	Nature Physics
Volume	11
Issue number	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3343
Publication status	Published - 1 Jul 2015

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Wheeler's delayed-choice gedanken experiment with a single atom

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