New Approach to Experiments on Low Intensity Interference

Abstract

ACCEPTANCE of the dual nature of light leads naturally to the question whether single photons interfere with themselves or whether interference effects are due to the interactions of two or more photons propagating “simultaneously”. Besides being of distinct philosophical interest, this question also has direct scientific significance, for, concerning the basis on which theory is built, it might be expected to have far reaching implications for theory itself^1–3. Many experiments^4–10 have been carried out which are purported to have decided the issue. All but one⁸ have shown that a coherent light source is able to engender interference effects no matter how faint the source. This has led to the conclusion that single photons do interfere with themselves.