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Anomalous weak values via a single photon detection

Is it possible that a measurement of a spin component of a spin-1/2 particle yields the value 100? In 1988 Aharonov, Albert and Vaidman argued that upon pre- and postselection of particular spin states, weakening the coupling of a standard measurement procedure ensures this paradoxical result(1). Th...

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Autores principales: Rebufello, Enrico, Piacentini, Fabrizio, Avella, Alessio, Souza, Muriel A. de, Gramegna, Marco, Dziewior, Jan, Cohen, Eliahu, Vaidman, Lev, Degiovanni, Ivo Pietro, Genovese, Marco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8149841/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34035219
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41377-021-00539-0
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author Rebufello, Enrico
Piacentini, Fabrizio
Avella, Alessio
Souza, Muriel A. de
Gramegna, Marco
Dziewior, Jan
Cohen, Eliahu
Vaidman, Lev
Degiovanni, Ivo Pietro
Genovese, Marco
author_facet Rebufello, Enrico
Piacentini, Fabrizio
Avella, Alessio
Souza, Muriel A. de
Gramegna, Marco
Dziewior, Jan
Cohen, Eliahu
Vaidman, Lev
Degiovanni, Ivo Pietro
Genovese, Marco
author_sort Rebufello, Enrico
collection PubMed
description Is it possible that a measurement of a spin component of a spin-1/2 particle yields the value 100? In 1988 Aharonov, Albert and Vaidman argued that upon pre- and postselection of particular spin states, weakening the coupling of a standard measurement procedure ensures this paradoxical result(1). This theoretical prediction, called weak value, was realised in numerous experiments(2–9), but its meaning remains very controversial(10–19), since its “anomalous” nature, i.e., the possibility to exceed the eigenvalue spectrum, as well as its “quantumness” are debated(20–22). We address these questions by presenting the first experiment measuring anomalous weak values with just a single click, without the need for statistical averaging. The measurement uncertainty is significantly smaller than the gap between the measured weak value and the nearest eigenvalue. Beyond clarifying the meaning of weak values, demonstrating their non-statistical, single-particle nature, this result represents a breakthrough in understanding the foundations of quantum measurement, showing unprecedented measurement capability for further applications of weak values to quantum photonics. [Image: see text]
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spelling pubmed-81498412021-06-10 Anomalous weak values via a single photon detection Rebufello, Enrico Piacentini, Fabrizio Avella, Alessio Souza, Muriel A. de Gramegna, Marco Dziewior, Jan Cohen, Eliahu Vaidman, Lev Degiovanni, Ivo Pietro Genovese, Marco Light Sci Appl Letter Is it possible that a measurement of a spin component of a spin-1/2 particle yields the value 100? In 1988 Aharonov, Albert and Vaidman argued that upon pre- and postselection of particular spin states, weakening the coupling of a standard measurement procedure ensures this paradoxical result(1). This theoretical prediction, called weak value, was realised in numerous experiments(2–9), but its meaning remains very controversial(10–19), since its “anomalous” nature, i.e., the possibility to exceed the eigenvalue spectrum, as well as its “quantumness” are debated(20–22). We address these questions by presenting the first experiment measuring anomalous weak values with just a single click, without the need for statistical averaging. The measurement uncertainty is significantly smaller than the gap between the measured weak value and the nearest eigenvalue. Beyond clarifying the meaning of weak values, demonstrating their non-statistical, single-particle nature, this result represents a breakthrough in understanding the foundations of quantum measurement, showing unprecedented measurement capability for further applications of weak values to quantum photonics. [Image: see text] Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-05-25 /pmc/articles/PMC8149841/ /pubmed/34035219 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41377-021-00539-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Letter
Rebufello, Enrico
Piacentini, Fabrizio
Avella, Alessio
Souza, Muriel A. de
Gramegna, Marco
Dziewior, Jan
Cohen, Eliahu
Vaidman, Lev
Degiovanni, Ivo Pietro
Genovese, Marco
Anomalous weak values via a single photon detection
title Anomalous weak values via a single photon detection
title_full Anomalous weak values via a single photon detection
title_fullStr Anomalous weak values via a single photon detection
title_full_unstemmed Anomalous weak values via a single photon detection
title_short Anomalous weak values via a single photon detection
title_sort anomalous weak values via a single photon detection
topic Letter
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8149841/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34035219
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41377-021-00539-0
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