No Arabic abstract
We consider a single copy of a quantum particle moving in a potential and show that it is possible to monitor its complete wave function by only continuously measuring its position. While we assume that the potential is known, no information is available about its state initially. In order to monitor the wave function, an estimate of the wave function is propagated due to the influence of the potential and continuously updated according to the results of the position measurement. We demonstrate by numerical simulations that the estimation reaches arbitrary values of accuracy below 100 percent within a finite time period for the potentials we study. In this way our method grants, a certain time after the beginning of the measurement, an accurate real-time record of the state evolution including the influence of the continuous measurement. Moreover, it is robust against sudden perturbations of the system as for example random momentum kicks from environmental particles, provided they occur not too frequently.
Wigner function is a quasi-distribution that provides a representation of the state of a quantum mechanical system in the phase space of position and momentum. In this paper we find a relation between Wigner function and appropriate measurements involving the system position and momentum which generalize the von Neumann model of measurement. We introduce two probes coupled successively in time to projectors associated with the system position and momentum. We show that one can relate Wigner function to Kirkwood joint quasi-distribution of position and momentum, the latter, in turn, being a particular case of successive measurements. We first consider the case of a quantum mechanical system described in a continuous Hilbert space, and then turn to the case of a discrete, finite-dimensional Hilbert space.
A single-particle multi-branched wave-function is studied. Usual which-path tests show that if the detector placed on one branch clicks, the detectors on the other branches remain silent. By the collapse postulate, after this click, the state of the particle is reduced to a single branch, the branch on which the detector clicked. The present article challenges the collapse postulate, claiming that when one branch of the wave-function produces a click in a detector, the other branches dont disappear. They cant produce clicks in detectors, but they are still there. An experiment different from which-path test is proposed, which shows that detectors are responsible for strongly decohering the wave-function, but not for making parts of it disappear. Moreover, one of the branches supposed to disappear may produce an interference pattern with a wave-packet of another particle.
We investigate the statistical arrow of time for a quantum system being monitored by a sequence of measurements. For a continuous qubit measurement example, we demonstrate that time-reversed evolution is always physically possible, provided that the measurement record is also negated. Despite this restoration of dynamical reversibility, a statistical arrow of time emerges, and may be quantified by the log-likelihood difference between forward and backward propagation hypotheses. We then show that such reversibility is a universal feature of non-projective measurements, with forward or backward Janus measurement sequences that are time-reversed inverses of each other.
We consider protocols to generate quantum entanglement between two remote qubits, through joint time-continuous detection of their spontaneous emission. We demonstrate that schemes based on homodyne detection, leading to diffusive quantum trajectories, lead to identical average entanglement yield as comparable photodetection strategies; this is despite substantial differences in the two-qubit state dynamics between these schemes, which we explore in detail. The ability to use different measurements to achieve the same ends may be of practical significance; the less-well-known diffusive scheme appears far more feasible on superconducting qubit platforms in the near term.
We consider multi-time correlators for output signals from linear detectors, continuously measuring several qubit observables at the same time. Using the quantum Bayesian formalism, we show that for unital (symmetric) evolution in the absence of phase backaction, an $N$-time correlator can be expressed as a product of two-time correlators when $N$ is even. For odd $N$, there is a similar factorization, which also includes a single-time average. Theoretical predictions agree well with experimental results for two detectors, which simultaneously measure non-commuting qubit observables.