Proposal for an interference experiment to test the applicability of quantum theory to event-based processes

We propose a single-particle Mach-Zehnder interferometer experiment in which the path length of one arm can change before each passage of a particle through the interferometer. We demonstrate that this experiment can be used to determine to which extent quantum theory provides a description of the observed detection events that goes beyond statistical averages or to refute a corpuscular model (De Raedt H., De Raedt K. and Michielsen K., Europhys. Lett., 69 (2005) 861) for this experiment. The proposed experiment also serves as a new type of test for the concept of particle-wave duality. Testing the applicability of quantum theory to event-based processes 2 Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the proposed Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) experiment. S: Light source; BS: 50-50 beam splitter; T0: Fixed time-of-flight; T1(x): Variable time-of-flight controlled by the external variable x; D0, D1: Ideal detectors. In single photon experiments x may change before each passage of a photon through the MZI but not faster. For simplicity we consider experiments in which x takes the values −1 and +1 only. The recorded dataset for N detection events is given by {xi, d0,i, d1,i|i = 1, . . . N} where dk,i = 1 if detector Dk, k = 0, 1 fired and dk,i = 0 otherwise. Note that the value of the experimental setting parameter x is not measured but is known and certain at each moment in time.