A unified description of interference of light and particles

Interference of light and of material particles has been described by the superposition of electromagnetic waves or probability waves (mathematical functions without a precise physical meaning), respectively.

For this reason, the physical meaning of interference is not the same in both scenarios. An interference principle is proposed that describes interference of waves and particles by the same necessary causes and attribute the resulting patterns to the same cause.

The start point to this aim is the Helmholtz equation which represents the time independent part of the classical wave function as well as of the Schrödinger equation in field free regions.

However, the meaning of the calculation here is quite different from that in the standard formulation. Indeed, its result is associated to sets of real and virtual point emitters, where the real point emitters characterize the waves or particles moving in the interferometer, independently from the two-point correlation conditions; while the virtual point emitters characterize the role of the experimental setup in close relationship with the correlation conditions, and with independence from the presence of waves or particles there.

This description leads to a new interference principle that explains such phenomenon with waves and particles with basis on the same necessary cause, i.e. interference results from the interaction of each real point emitter with the virtual point emitters of the setup. As a consequence of this interaction, waves and particles are driven by the geometric potential provided by the virtual point emitters, thus producing the interference patterns. Accurate simulations of light waves, single electron and single massive molecule interference patterns, predicted with basis on this principle, are shown in near and far-field conditions.