A New Interpretation of the Recoiling-Slit Quantum Interference Experiment

In December 2025, Pan Jianwei’s research team reproduced the Einstein-Bohr recoiling-slit thought experiment proposed in 1927 at the quantum limit. They observed that the interference fringe contrast changes continuously with the momentum of the slit. Mainstream physical theories currently regard this phenomenon as critical evidence for the quantum complementarity principle. Based on the Light Primitive Theory, this paper points out that all relevant theoretical models established since the century-long debate at the Solvay Conference contain two fundamental idealized simplifications: first, physical slits are abstracted as two-dimensional geometric holes with zero thickness; second, the inherent continuous spatial oscillation of photons is ignored. Photons are not point-like particles moving along fixed straight lines. Their persistent oscillation enables continuous momentum coupling between photons and the photon self-locked matter forming the slit walls throughout the whole passage through the physically thick slit channel. The inverse correlation between path detectability and interference fringe visibility observed in the experiment can be self-consistently explained by continuous photon-slit wall interaction, without abstract hypotheses such as wave-particle complementarity or quantum superposition. This paper supplements the objective physical conditions missing from traditional models and provides a brand-new interpretative framework for quantum interference phenomena at the underlying mechanism level.