Events

3 August 2012

Areski Nait-Abdallah speaks about Single photon self-interference in quantum physics: a logical analysis.

Friday 3 August 2012, 14h
Microsoft Research - Inria Joint Centre
Campus de l’Ecole polytechnique, Palaiseau
Bld Alan Turing, Salle MilnerSingle photon self-interference in quantum physics: a logical analysis
Areski Nait-Abdallah
University of Western Ontario, CanadaThe particle interference problem is a central conceptual issue in quantum mechanics, and its clarification has undergone important contributions including Aspect, Grangier, Scully and others, who consider the fascinating problem of single-photon interference, i.e. how a single photon may interfere with itself.

In this talk we generalize some concepts from the logic of partial information and constructive logic to address the issue of a logical formalization the particle intereference problem. We provide a Curry-Howard isomorphism based logical analysis of the photon interference problem, and develop an account in that framework.

The numerical interpretation of the lambda-terms thus calculated matches the expected results from a quantum mechanics point of view, thus contributing to bridging the gap between constructive logic and quantum mechanics