Experimental Proposal for Detecting a Physical Empty Guiding Wave in a Polarization Interferometer

Abstract

This paper proposes an experimental test of the possible physical existence of anempty guiding-wave component associated with a photon in a polarization interfer-ometer.The experiment investigates whether an optical path containing no detected pho-ton excitation may nevertheless contain a physically active guiding-wave contributioncapable of influencing the polarization outcome after coherent recombination.A single photon prepared in a well-defined polarization state is separated bya polarizing beam splitter into two optical channels. One channel contains thephoton excitation, while the second channel is nominally empty from the corpuscularpoint of view. Optical elements placed in this empty arm, including phase plates,optical fibers, or resonant structures, are used to modify a possible guiding-wavecontribution.According to standard quantum mechanics, manipulating an unoccupied opticalmode should not modify the polarization statistics of the detected photons, apartfrom conventional optical imperfections.Within an extended realist pilot-wave framework, in which photons are asso-ciated with physically extended guiding structures, the empty arm may contain adynamically active wave component. After recombination, the resulting polarizationstatistics may depend on the configuration of the empty optical path.This experiment provides a direct test of the physical status of guiding waves andconstitutes the experimental continuation of previous theoretical studies proposingexternally manipulated photon guiding contributions, common guiding structuresfor entangled photons, and spin/polarization as properties emerging from structuredguiding fields.