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In Young's double slit experiment, as the width of the source slit is increased,

Asked in GSEB Board July 2021 · Intensity and coherent sources

Answer: (1) Interference fringe pattern gets less and less sharp

Step-by-step solution

Given: the source slit that illuminates Young's double slit is made wider.

Idea: the two slits behave as coherent sources only while the light reaching them comes from a small enough source; the usual condition is s/S≤λ/d, with s the width of the source slit and S its distance from the double slit.

Treat the wide slit as many narrow slits side by side, independent of one another.

Each of them produces a complete fringe pattern, shifted slightly from its neighbour's.

Adding patterns that are shifted against each other lifts the minima and lowers the maxima.

So the fringes lose contrast: the pattern gets less and less sharp, and finally disappears into uniform illumination.

Why the other options are wrong

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