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Two coherent beams of light will absolutely interfere.
by beojan 6y ago
Two coherent beams of light will absolutely interfere.
- danbruc 6y agoI think that was meant to mean that the two beams interact. Two crossing light beams will pass right through each other without much happening while two electron beams will interact. But this is because electrons are charged and photons are not. On careful inspection and with high energy photons one would also notice an interaction between two light beams due to photon photon scattering [1]. But one could reasonably call this a kind of distraction due to different charges of different particles. Ignoring those makes photons and electrons behave identical in respect to the phenomena discussed in the article. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-photon_physics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-photon_physics
- ahartmetz 6y agoElectron beams interfere in ways that light beams don't, though. If they cross in vacuum, they deflect each other due to the electric charge carried by electrons. Light beams can only deflect each other in media with non-linear response to electromagnetic fields, i.e. the response to one beam modifies the response to the other beam.
- klodolph 6y agoTechnically speaking even the vacuum is nonlinear, according to current theories (although it hasn’t been observed yet).