Asking photons where they have been in plain language

Sokolovski, D.

doi:10.1016/j.physleta.2016.11.010

Cited by 36 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 24 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Lett. 60, 1351(1988], which missed the connection between the amplitudes and the "weak values" introduced therein.Recently Lev Vaidman has presented his Comment [1] on our paper [2], in which we argued that the description the photon's past in [3], based on "weak trace" approach of [4], is incorrect. Vaidman disagreed [1], and this is our reply to the Comment.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The error in the analysis of [4] became an error in the explanation given in [3], where the authors claim to find that "Some of them [photons] have been inside the nested interferometer ..., but they never entered and never left". Since the publication of [3] several authors [14]- [19], including ourselves [2], have been pointing out that in an experimental realisation there is always evidence of photons entering the nested loop between BS2 and BS3 in Fig.1. However, the authors of [3], probably influenced by the "weak measurement" ideology of [4], chose not to look for the much smaller signals from the probes at E and F .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Commentary: “Asking photons where they have been” - without telling them what to say

Salih¹

2015

Front. Phys.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In a recent letter, Danan et al. [1] devised an elegant experiment investigating the past of photons inside two Mach-Zehnder interferometers, one inside the other-yet drew the wrong conclusions. Namely, that-based on weak measurements on pre-and post-selected states-some photons have been inside the inner interferometer but they never entered and never left. And, consequently, a "common sense" approach describing the past of a photon in terms of a trajectory, or a set of trajectories, for example [2][3][4], should be abandoned.But if weak measurements are carried out such that zero photons leave the inner interferometer-that is complete destructive interference is not disturbed, as should be the casethese measurements, which we show how to implement, do not find the photons to have been inside. Further, we argue that the story told by the two-state vector formulation (TSVF) that Danan et al. advocate is in fact contradictory.By vibrating the mirrors in their key setup of Figure (|A − i |B + |C ). The presence of detector peaks at the vibrational frequencies of mirrors A and B indicates that some photons have been near these mirrors. Now imagine that both mirrors A and B are made to vibrate at precisely the same frequency, such that whenever A is rotated by a small angle δθ, B is rotated by −δθ, i.e., in the opposite direction. By simple geometry, and provided that the distances from A and B to the beam-splitter on the way to F are equal, it is easy to see that complete destructive interference at F is not disturbed, as shown in our Figure 1.What happens to the detector peaks corresponding to mirrors A and B? The weak values of the projection operators at A and B are +1 and −1 respectively. The minus sign for mirror B corresponds, according to weak measurement theory, to an average vertical shift for the photons arriving at the detector that is in the opposite direction of that due to A-the two thus cancelling each other out. Classically, by electromagnetism, eliminating light leakage from the inner interferometer by restoring complete destructive interference means that the all-important detector peaks at the vibrational frequency of mirrors A and B now disappear!

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Commentary: “Asking photons where they have been” - without telling them what to say

Salih¹

2015

Front. Phys.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Weak values A w [Eq. (6)] and A w [Eqs. (30), (45)] obtained using weak and strong interactions respectively can be directly compared using a linear relation between operators A and A…”

Section: Operational Equivalencementioning

confidence: 99%

Interplay between strong and weak measurement: comparison of three experimental approaches to weak value estimation

Roik

Lemr

Cernoch

et al. 2020

J. Opt.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Weak values are traditionally obtained using a weak interaction between the measured system and a pointer state. It has, however, been pointed out that weak coupling can be replaced by a carefully tailored strong interaction. This paper provides a direct comparison of two strong interaction-based approaches (strong interaction accompanied by either a suitably prepared pointer state or quantum erasure) and the traditional weak interaction-based method. Presented theoretical derivations explicitly prove analytical equivalence of these approaches which was subsequently certified by an experiment implemented on the platform of linear optics. We find that strong-interaction-based measurements are experimentally less demanding on this platform.

show abstract

“…In can be shown [7] that if K ≤ N of the Fs are different, an accurate (strong) meter would destroy interference between the unions (superpositions [7]) of paths corresponding to the different values of F . It will, therefore, create K exclusive routes [3] endowed with both the amplitudes [∆(a − b) = 1 for a = b, and 0 otherwise] (2) and the probabilities P F ←I k = |Ã F ←I k | 2 An accurate pointer would always point at one of the F k , so that for its mean shift we have…”

Section: Accurate (Strong) Measurements With Post-selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comment on “Null weak values and the past of a quantum particle”

Sokolovski¹

2018

Phys. Rev. A

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In a recent paper [1], Duprey and Matzin investigeated the meaning of vanishing "weak values" (WV), and their role in the retrodiction of the past of a pre-and post-selected quantum system in the presence of interference. Here we argue that any proposition, regarding the WV values, should be understood as a statement about the probability amplitudes, and revisit some of the conclusions reached in [1].

show abstract

Asking photons where they have been in plain language

Abstract: The authors of Phys.Rev. Lett. 111, 240402 (2013) conclude that "the past of the photons is not represented by continuous trajectories". A simple analysis by standard quantum mechanics shows that this claim is false.

Cited by 36 publications

References 24 publications

Commentary: “Asking photons where they have been” - without telling them what to say

Commentary: “Asking photons where they have been” - without telling them what to say

Interplay between strong and weak measurement: comparison of three experimental approaches to weak value estimation

Comment on “Null weak values and the past of a quantum particle”

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About