Talk:Renninger negative-result experiment

Thoughts about diffraction

"Diffraction from the inner hemisphere is expected." If so then it's possible that the inner hemisphere of detectors does not detect the particle, and then the wave function partially collapses to an expanding hemisphere but with diffraction effects at the edge, and they cause the particle to miss the outer hemisphere of detectors as well. Indeed, if the outer detectors formed a complete sphere, then the particle could trigger a detector in the outer sphere that's in the shadow of the inner hemisphere, because the wave function has diffracted round the edge of the inner hemisphere. The particle would appear to have gone straight through the inner hemisphere without triggering a detector. Does this mean that it's impossible for the detectors to be 100% efficient? Occultations (talk) 21:47, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In real life, detectors are never 100% efficient. Efficiency depends on both the particle type, and its energy. Last I looked, photomultiplier tubes were 30-60% efficient. Solid-state gamma ray detectors maybe similar. Cherenkov .. dunno, for very high energies, maybe they approach 95% or better not sure. linas (talk) 05:32, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thoughts about tunneling

I do not know a great deal about QM in general, but wouldn't the ability of the wave function to place a particle outside of physical boundaries make actually closing the wave function without direct observation impossible? Even supposing a perfect sensor, quantum tunneling seems to imply that a particle with an eventual trajectory that intersects with the sensor might infact not come into physical contact with it. This possibility of tunneling (regardless of how remote it is) seems to require positive-result to verify the negative-result. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.191.168.228 (talk) 16:09, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]