I recently watched this video about the quantum eraser experiment on PBS spacetime: Link. Has an experiment like the quantum eraser been tried with the pilot wave theory, ie bouncing droplet experiments? What would be the expected result? Could the waves hitting sensors 'C' and 'D' bounce back to interfere with the pattern?
Or: Has anyone modelled the pilot wave theory on a computer? Google/scholar doesn't show any immediate results. It seems like an obvious thing to do, since it would let you model quantum behavior from newtonian rules.(?)
Best Answer
The physical pilot wave experiments work well as an analogy for single, spinless 2D particles, however it's important to realise that it is just an analogy; Bohmian mechanics (the quantum pilot wave theory) has a very different underlying process.
The physical pilot waves are strictly local, and this is precisely the kind of quantum theory ruled out by Bell's inequalities (Viz. they can never model all quantum phenomena; the fact they can model some was a great surprise to many). Bohmian mechanics is nonlocal, and can perfectly explain delayed choice experiments. It ends up with the same results as standard quantum mechanics.
For a thorough explanation as to a delayed choice experiment in the Bohmian picture, see this article by Mahler et al. (2016); 'Experimental nonlocal and surreal Bohmian trajectories' (the DOI is broken, otherwise I'd have used that).