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arXiv:0806.2416 · Nature Physics

Quantum mechanical complementarity probed in a closed-loop Aharonov–Bohm interferometer

Dong-In Chang, Gyong Luck Khym, Kicheon Kang, Yunchul Chung, Hu-Jong Lee, Minky Seo, Moty Heiblum, D. Mahalu, V. Umansky

Published Feb 3, 2008• 51 citations
arXivHTMLPDF
DOI
10.1038/nphys854

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We study complementarity in a two-terminal closed-loop Aharonov-Bohm interferometer with a quantum dot embedded in an arm of the ring and a nearby charge detector capacitively coupled to the quantum dot. We show that perfect charge detection does riot give full information of the electronic path, so it does not completely suppress the interference. We propose that this property can be verified even in the limit of weak charge detection by investigating the dephasing of the first and the second harmonics of the Aharonov-Bohm oscillation. The first harmonic of the AB oscillation is reduced monotonically as a function of the charge detection strength. In contrast, the second harmonic interference remains unaffected due to the fact that charge detection is not able to detect the electronic path responsible for the second harmonic. Our theory confirms that the particle-like behavior of an electron emerges from the path information itself rather than from the disturbance.
We report on a study of complementarity in a two-terminal closed-loop Aharonov-Bohm interferometer. In this interferometer, the simple picture of two-path interference cannot be applied. We introduce a nearby quantum point contact to detect the electron in a quantum dot inserted in the interferometer. We found that charge detection reduces but does not completely suppress the interference even in the limit of perfect detection. We attribute this phenomenon to the unique nature of the closed-loop interferometer. That is, the closed-loop interferometer cannot be simply regarded as a two-path interferometer because of multiple reflections of electrons. As a result, there exist indistinguishable paths of the electron in the interferometer and the interference survives even in the limit of perfect charge detection. This implies that charge detection is not equivalent to path detection in a closed-loop interferometer. We also discuss the phase rigidity of the transmission probability for a two-terminal conductor in the presence of a detector.
The standard semiclassical treatment of the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect, which predicts no observable phase shift for open electron paths in field-free regions due to gauge dependence, is shown to be incomplete. By fully quantizing both the probe electron and the electromagnetic source within quantum electrodynamics (QED), we derive an effective action that decomposes the AB phase into two equal contributions: a gauge-dependent probe phase from the source's potential acting on the electron, and a gauge-invariant source phase arising from the electron's quantum backreaction on the source via virtual-photon exchange. For open paths, where the probe phase vanishes under gauge choice, the source phase persists as a measurable part of the closed-loop value, isolated through a polarization--magnetization decomposition that separates its invariant bulk from a gauge-dependent boundary term. This uncovers a leading-order QED correction to nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, resolves longstanding debates on the AB phase's origin and locality, and refines gauge principles by revealing hidden gauge invariants in formally gauge-dependent quantities. While challenging to test directly, a conceptual scheme involving phase transfer to auxiliary qubits illustrates its potential observability, emphasizing its novelty beyond conventional closed-loop paradigms.