Quantum carpet

File:Quantum Carpet.gif

Quantum Carpet for the particle in the infinite potential well. The horizontal axis is the particle position. The running animation time is the change of the initial wave function.

In quantum mechanics, a quantum carpet is a regular art-like pattern drawn by the wave function evolution or the probability density in the space of the Cartesian product of the quantum particle position coordinate and time or in spacetime resembling carpet art. It is the result of self-interference of the wave function during its interaction with reflecting boundaries. For example, in the infinite potential well, after the spread of the initially localized Gaussian wave packet in the center of the well, various pieces of the wave function start to overlap and interfere with each other after reflection from the boundaries. The geometry of a quantum carpet is mainly determined by the quantum fractional revivals.