English

Experimental demonstration of direct path state characterization by strongly measuring weak values in a matter-wave interferometer

Quantum Physics 2017-01-10 v1

Abstract

A novel method was recently proposed and experimentally realized for characterizing a quantum state by directly measuring its complex probability amplitudes in a particular basis using so-called weak values. Recently Vallone and Dequal showed theoretically that weak measurements are not a necessary condition to determine the weak value [Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 040502 (2016)]. Here we report a measurement scheme used in a matter-wave interferometric experiment in which the neutron path system's quantum state was characterized via direct measurements using both strong and weak interactions. Experimental evidence is given that strong interactions outperform weak ones. Our results are not limited to neutron interferometry, but can be used in a wide range of quantum systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1604.04102,
  title  = {Experimental demonstration of direct path state characterization by strongly measuring weak values in a matter-wave interferometer},
  author = {Tobias Denkmayr and Hermann Geppert and Hartmut Lemmel and Mordecai Waegell and Justin Dressel and Yuji Hasegawa and Stephan Sponar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.04102},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

5 pages, 3 figures