Related papers: The Lindley paradox in optical interferometry
A pair of interferometers can be coupled by allowing one path from each to overlap such that if the particles meet in this overlap region, they annihilate. It was shown by one of us over thirty years ago that such annihilation-coupled…
For a generic interferometer, the conditional probability density distribution, $p(\phi|m)$, for the phase $\phi$ given measurement outcome $m$, will generally have multiple peaks. Therefore, the phase sensitivity of an interferometer…
We investigate the relation between frequentist and Bayesian approaches. Namely, we find the "frequentist" Bayes prior \pi_{f}(\lambda,x_{obs}) = -\frac{\int_{-\infty}^{x_{obs}}\frac{\partial f(x,\lambda)}{\partial…
In spite of the widespread use of optical tweezers as a quantitative tool to measure small forces, there exists no unambiguous and simple experimental method for either validating its theoretically predicted form or empirically…
Optical-window birefringence is frequently a major obstacle in experiments measuring changes in the polarization state of light traversing a sample under investigation. It can contribute a signal indistinguishable from that due to the…
We investigate interference of optical fields by examining the probability distribution of photon detection. The usual description of interference patterns in terms of superposition of classical mean fields with definite phases is…
We review common situations in Bayesian latent variable models where the prior distribution that a researcher specifies differs from the prior distribution used during estimation. These situations can arise from the positive definite…
We consider a novel paradigm for Bayesian testing of hypotheses and Bayesian model comparison. Our alternative to the traditional construction of posterior probabilities that a given hypothesis is true or that the data originates from a…
Estimating the difference between two binomial proportions will be investigated, where Bayesian, frequentist and fiducial (BFF) methods will be considered. Three vague priors will be used, the Jeffreys prior, a divergence prior and the…
The phenomena known as the twin-paradox and time dilation, which are familiar effects in the special theory of relativity, have analogous counterparts in polarization optics. To show that, we present the concept of proper irradiance for a…
We discuss complementarity and uncertainty in a gedanken Which-Way (Welcher-Weg) experiment in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Although a Welcher-Weg measurement can be performed with only a negligible amount of momentum change in the…
High-accuracy dimensional measurements by laser interferometers require corrections because of diffraction, which makes the effective fringe-period different from the wavelength of a plane (or spherical) wave $\lambda_0$. By using a…
It is well known that the Mach-Zender interferometer exhibits a trade-off between the a priori which-path knowledge and the visibility of its interference pattern. This trade-off is expressed by the inequality $\mathcal{P}^2 + \mathcal{V}^2…
A central challenge in statistical inference is the presence of confounding variables that may distort observed associations between treatment and outcome. Conventional "causal" methods, grounded in assumptions such as ignorability, exclude…
Frequentist (classical) and the Bayesian approaches to the construction of confidence limits are compared. Various examples which illustrate specific problems are presented. The Likelihood Principle and the Stopping Rule Paradox are…
In multimode interferometers, the interaction between several modes brings a high level of complexity to the interpretation of its light patterns. With recent advances, it is possible to selectively excite only a couple of modes inside the…
Observational astrophysics consists of making inferences about the Universe by comparing data and models. The credible intervals placed on model parameters are often as important as the maximum a posteriori probability values, as the…
The aim of this paper is to revisit the implications of complementarity when we inject into a Mach Zehnder interferometer particles with internal structure, prepared in special translational-internal entangled (TIE) states. This correlation…
Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, the fact that identical photons that arrive simultaneously on different input ports of a beam splitter bunch into a common output port, can be used to measure optical delays between different paths. It is…
We use an electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer to explore the non-equilibrium coherence of the electron waves within the edge-states that form in the integral quantum Hall effect. The visibility of the interference as a function of…