The ability to post-select the outcomes of an experiment is a useful theoretical concept and experimental tool. In the context of weak measurements, post-selection can lead to surprising results such as complex weak values outside the range of eigenvalues. Usually post-selection is realized by a projective measurement, which is hard to implement in ensemble systems such as NMR. We demonstrate the first experiment of a weak measurement with post-selection on an NMR quantum information processor. Our setup is used for measuring complex weak values and weak values outside the range of eigenvalues. The scheme for overcoming the problem of post-selection in an ensemble quantum computer is general and can be applied to any circuit-based implementation. This experiment paves the way for studying and exploiting post-selection and weak measurements in systems where projective measurements are hard to realize experimentally.
The ability to post-select the outcomes of an experiment is a useful theoretical concept and experimental tool. In the context of weak measurements, post-selection can lead to surprising results such as complex weak values outside the range of eigenvalues. Usually post-selection is realized by a projective measurement, which is hard to implement in ensemble systems such as NMR. We demonstrate the first experiment of a weak measurement with post-selection on an NMR quantum information processor. Our setup is used for measuring complex weak values and weak values outside the range of eigenvalues. The scheme for overcoming the problem of post-selection in an ensemble quantum computer is general and can be applied to any circuit-based implementation. This experiment paves the way for studying and exploiting post-selection and weak measurements in systems where projective measurements are hard to realize experimentally.
Post-selection is the selection of a subset of an ensemble based on a measurement on that ensemble. In the last few years, post-selection has taken on new importance as a mechanism to induce the optical nonlinearities required for quantum logic gates. I present experiments and theory that explore post-selection in photonic systems. I then go on to describe an experimental implementation of Hardy's Paradox, which is one of the three great thought-experiments about entanglement and correlations in quantum mechanics (the others being the EPR and GHZ "paradoxes"). In the place of the electron--positron annihilation in the original proposal, I apply, for the first time, a post-selection-based absorptive photon switch that coworkers and I had previously developed. Weak measurement promises to be an important technique for characterizing post-selected quantum systems during their evolution. The technique minimizes disturbance to the system and therefore can be used in situ. In a third experiment, I attempt to resolve a recent debate: Which is more fundamental--complementarity or the uncertainty principle? Specifically, can interference be destroyed by a which-path measurement without transferring momentum to the particle? This question is difficult to investigate as any measurement of the momentum transfer causes collapse, severely disturbing the system. I circumvent this problem with the technique of weak measurement and show that which-path measurements do indeed induce a momentum transfer as required by the uncertainty principle. First, I experimentally demonstrate effective nonlinear absorption between two single photons. I show that this photon-exchange effect can be understood as a post-selection induced nonlinearity similar to the one that occurs in Hong-Ou-Mandel interference. In a fourth experiment, I use the latter theory and return to Hardy's Paradox to perform the first weak measurement of an entangled system. I post-select on the paradoxical measurement result while weakly measuring a set of observables. The results are surprising in that they no longer conflict; they now satisfy a classical-logic truth-table. I then proceed to develop theoretically a new method for performing multiparticle weak measurements that is unique because it does not require single-particle-level interactions. This theory provides new insight into the importance of the imaginary component of the weak measurement result.
A weak measurement performed on a pre- and post-selected quantum system can result in an average value that lies outside of the observable's spectrum. This effect, usually referred to as an ``anomalous weak value'', is generally believed to be possible only when a non-trivial post-selection is performed, i.e., when only a particular subset of the data is considered. Here we show, however, that this is not the case in general: in scenarios in which several weak measurements are sequentially performed, an anomalous weak value can be obtained without post-selection, i.e., without discarding any data. We discuss several questions that this raises about the subtle relation between weak values and pointer positions for sequential weak measurements. Finally, we consider some implications of our results for the problem of distinguishing different causal structures.
Full text: Along with the well-known concept of projective measurements, quantum mechanics allows various kinds of generalized measurement operators. Two important examples are: joint measurements on two or more quantum systems that cannot be achieved by local operations (LOCC); and weak measurements that obtain less information about a system than does a projective measurement, but with correspondingly less disturbance. Unlike the result of a strong measurement, the average value of a weak measurement of an observable (its weak value), when followed by projective postselection in a complementary basis, can lie outside the range of eigenvalues. This discrepancy is not observed in analogous classical measurements. Weak values aid the resolution of quantum paradoxes, and can simplify analysis of weakly coupled systems. We use a generalized measurement device to measure the weak value of a photon's polarization in the horizontal/vertical basis (the Stokes operator S1 = |H> weak up to 47, outside the usual range -1 {<=} S1 {<=} 1. Unlike previous observations of weak values, our measurement works by entangling two separate systems, and thus can only be described by quantum theory, not a classical wave theory. Also, we have used a two-qubit joint measurement based on a controlled-NOT gate by which certain twoqubit unentangled states can be more reliably distinguished than by using LOCC. We quantify this using a payoff function, for which the optimal LOCC measurement attains 2/3, and our experimental measurement attains 0.72 {+-} 0.02, close to the global optimum of 3/4. (author)
Due to the reduced probability of successful post-selection, the weak-value amplification seems to be unavailable for the parameter-estimation. Here, we show theoretically that, some effects due to the weak interactions present only in the properly post-selected sub-ensemble, however are canceled by themselves in the total ensemble. From this point of view, the post-selection induced weak value could be one of the feasible methods for measuring the weak interaction, since the standard measurement does not work. Additionally, we employ the system of trapped ions to simulate the weak measurement and calculate relevant results without the frequently-used weak interaction approximation.
Despite being very influential on both foundations and applications of quantum mechanics, weak values are still somewhat controversial. Although there are some indications that weak values are physical properties of a single quantum system, the common way weak values are presented is statistical: it is commonly believed that for measuring weak values one has to perform many weak measurements over a large ensemble of pre- and postselected particles. Other debates surround the anomalous nature of weak value and even their quantumness. To address these issues, we present some preliminary data showing that anomalous weak values can be measured using just a single detection, i.e. with no statistics. In our experiment, a single click of a detector indicates the weak value as a single photon property, which moreover lies well beyond the range of eigenvelues of the measured operator. Importantly, the uncertainty with which the weak values is measured is smaller than the difference between the weak value and the closet eigenvalue. This is the first experimental realization of robust weak measurements.