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Register a new userDetermining the Quantum Expectation Value by Measuring a Single Photon
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Added by
Fabrizio Piacentini
Publication date
2017
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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Quantum mechanics, one of the keystones of modern physics, exhibits several peculiar properties, differentiating it from classical mechanics. One of the most intriguing is that variables might not have definite values. A complete quantum description provides only probabilities for obtaining various eigenvalues of a quantum variable. These and corresponding probabilities specify the expectation value of a physical observable, which is known to be a statistical property of an ensemble of quantum systems. In contrast to this paradigm, we demonstrate a unique method allowing to measure the expectation value of a physical variable on a single particle, namely, the polarisation of a single protected photon. This is the first realisation of quantum protective measurements.
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One of the most intriguing aspects of Quantum Mechanics is the impossibility of measuring at the same time observables corresponding to non-commuting operators. This impossibility can be partially relaxed when considering joint or sequential weak values evaluation. Indeed, weak measurements have been a real breakthrough in the quantum measurement framework that is of the utmost interest from both a fundamental and an applicative point of view. Here we show how we realized, for the first time, a sequential weak value evaluation of two incompatible observables on a single photon.
The Wigner quasiprobability distribution of a narrowband single-photon state was reconstructed by quantum state tomography using photon-number-resolving measurements with transition-edge sensors (TES) at system efficiency 58(2)%. This method makes no assumptions on the nature of the measured state, save for the limitation on photon flux imposed by the TES. Negativity of the Wigner function was observed in the raw data without any inference or correction for decoherence.
Entanglement is a fundamental feature of quantum mechanics, considered a key resource in quantum information processing. Measuring entanglement is an essential step in a wide range of applied and foundational quantum experiments. When a two-particle quantum state is not pure, standard methods to measure the entanglement require detection of both particles. We introduce a method in which detection of only one of the particles is required to characterize the entanglement of a two-particle mixed state. Our method is based on the principle of quantum interference. We use two identical sources of a two-photon mixed state and generate a set of single-photon interference patterns. The entanglement of the two-photon quantum state is characterized by the visibility of the interference patterns. Our experiment thus opens up a distinct avenue for verifying and measuring entanglement, and can allow for mixed state entanglement characterization even when one particle in the pair cannot be detected.
Experimental determination of an unknown quantum state usually requires several incompatible measurements. However, it is also possible to determine the full quantum state from a single, repeated measurement. For this purpose, the quantum system whose state is to be determined is first coupled to a second quantum system (the assistant) in such a way that part of the information in the quantum state is transferred to the assistant. The actual measurement is then performed on the enlarged system including the original system and the assistant. We discuss in detail the requirements of this procedure and experimentally implement it on a simple quantum system consisting of nuclear spins.
The evaluation of expectation values $Trleft[rho Oright]$ for some pure state $rho$ and Hermitian operator $O$ is of central importance in a variety of quantum algorithms. Near optimal techniques developed in the past require a number of measurements $N$ approaching the Heisenberg limit $N=mathcal{O}left(1/epsilonright)$ as a function of target accuracy $epsilon$. The use of Quantum Phase Estimation requires however long circuit depths $C=mathcal{O}left(1/epsilonright)$ making their implementation difficult on near term noisy devices. The more direct strategy of Operator Averaging is usually preferred as it can be performed using $N=mathcal{O}left(1/epsilon^2right)$ measurements and no additional gates besides those needed for the state preparation. In this work we use a simple but realistic model to describe the bound state of a neutron and a proton (the deuteron) and show that the latter strategy can require an overly large number of measurement in order to achieve a reasonably small relative target accuracy $epsilon_r$. We propose to overcome this problem using a single step of QPE and classical post-processing. This approach leads to a circuit depth $C=mathcal{O}left(epsilon^muright)$ (with $mugeq0$) and to a number of measurements $N=mathcal{O}left(1/epsilon^{2+ u}right)$ for $0< uleq1$. We provide detailed descriptions of two implementations of our strategy for $ u=1$ and $ uapprox0.5$ and derive appropriate conditions that a particular problem instance has to satisfy in order for our method to provide an advantage.
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