  A macroscopic hydrodynamic system that couples a particle and a wave has
recently renewed interest in the question as to what extent a classical system
may reproduce quantum phenomena. Here we investigate single-particle
diffraction with a pilot-wave model originally developed to describe the
hydrodynamic system. We study single-particle interactions with a barrier and
slits of increasing width by focusing on the near field. We find
single-particle diffraction arising as wavelike patterns in the particles'
position statistics, which we compare to the predictions of quantum mechanics.
We provide a mechanism that rationalizes the diffractive behavior in our
system.
