English

A "fair sampling" perspective on an apparent violation of duality

Optics 2015-06-18 v1 Quantum Physics

Abstract

In the event in which a quantum mechanical particle can pass from an initial state to a final state along two possible paths, the duality principle states that "the simultaneous observation of wave and particle behavior is prohibited". [M. O. Scully, B.-G. Englert, and H. Walther. Nature, 351:111-116, 1991.] emphasized the importance of additional degrees of freedom in the context of complementarity. In this paper, we show how the consequences of duality change when allowing for biased sampling, that is, postselected measurements on specific degrees of freedom of the environment of the two-path state. Our work contributes to the explanation of previous experimental apparent violations of duality [R. Menzel, D. Puhlmann, A. Heuer, and W. P. Schleich. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 109(24):9314-9319, 2012.] and opens up the way for novel experimental tests of duality.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1402.6487,
  title  = {A "fair sampling" perspective on an apparent violation of duality},
  author = {Eliot Bolduc and Jonathan Leach and Filippo M. Miatto and Gerd Leuchs and Robert W. Boyd},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1402.6487},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

10 pages, 8 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T03:16:08.394Z