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PSA Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association

On the Paradoxical Aspects of New Quantum Experiments

Lev Vaidman A

Published Jan 1, 1994• 32 citations
Publisher

Abstract

I shall discuss two recently suggested quantum experiments. These experiments lead to paradoxical situations. I will argue that in the framework of a particular Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum theory the paradoxes do not arise. The first experiment is the “interaction-free measurement” (Elitzur and Vaidman 1993). The experimental group at Innsbruck headed by Prof. Zeilinger is working now on its realization. Before describing the experiment let me discuss a general question: “How do we know that there is an object in a region of space?” The simplest case is when the object itself causes some physical changes outside the region: i) The object is charged, so there is a field outside. We can measure this field. ii) The object yields a potential outside. Aharonov and Bohm have taught us that potential even without field leads to a measurable effect. iii) The objects radiates photons or other particles.

DOI
10.1086/psaprocbienmeetp.1994.1.193026

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The Paradoxes of the Interaction-free Measurements

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Abstract Interaction-free measurements introduced by Elitzur and Vaidman [Found. Phys. 23,987 (1993)] allow finding infinitely fragile objects without destroying them. Paradoxical features of these and related measurements are discussed. The resolution of the paradoxes in the framework of the Many-Worlds Interpretation is proposed.

arXiv:quant-ph/0102049•Zeitschrift für Naturforschung A•Feb 1, 2001•7 citations

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In 1993 Elitzur and Vaidmannl (EV) demonstrated that quantum mechanics permits the use of light quanta to examine an object without a single photon having actually interacted with the object, requiring only the possibility of such an interaction. The EV scenario has recently been carried out in the laboratory and its predictions verified. EV discussed their scenario in terms of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which the interaction-free result is rather mysterious, using a “knowledge” not available classically. They also used the Everett-Wheeler interpretation and suggested that the information indicating the presence of the opaque object comes from an interaction in a separate Everett-Wheeler universe, with the information communicated to our universe through the absence of interference. In the present work, we will examine the EV interaction-free scenario in terms of the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics2 and will provide a more plausible account of the physical processes that make possible quantum interaction-free measurements.

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On the realization of interaction-free measurements

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Recently, it has been pointed out that it is possible to make a quantum-mechanical interaction-free measurement (IFM), in which the existence of an object in a given region of space may be determined seemingly without interacting with it.1,2 In the embodiment first proposed by Elitzur and Vaidman,3 a standard Michelson interferometer is aligned so that incident single photons (obtained in our experiment by using parametric downconversion; see Fig. 1) must exit by the same port in which they entered, in the absence of any object within the interferometer. The presence of an object (e.g., the mirror leading to detector DB) in one of the arms completely changes the possible outcomes because the constructive interference is interrupted. Now it is possible that the photon will exit from the other exit port, to detector DIfm. By detecting the photon in this case, one can claim with certainty that an object was within the interferometer, even though the photon could not have interacted with it. If the beam splitter has a very low reflectivity, then the fraction of IFMs approaches 1/2.

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The basic thesis of this book is that there is no quantum measurement problem. I do not mean by this that the apparent paradoxes of quantum mechanics arise because we fail to recognize ‘that quantum theory does not describe physical reality’ (Fuchs and Peres 2000a). Quantum theory describes reality just fine, like any other scientific theory worth taking seriously: describing (and explaining) reality is what the scientific enterprise is about. Nor do I mean that we have found solutions to the problem, ways to modify or supplement quantum mechanics so that the paradoxes are removed. I don’t actually think that we have found any very satisfactory solutions in this sense (at least not in the relativistic domain) but that isn’t my theme: even if we did have these modifications, they would be ways of changing from quantum physics, which supposedly does have a measurement problem, to some other theory, which supposedly doesn’t.

Oxford University Press eBooks•May 24, 2012•3 citations

Quantum Measurement

Bob Coecke, Aleks Kissinger

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. – Max Planck, 1936 The only way quantum theory allows us to interact with quantum systems is via quantum processes. Thus, the only way we can extract information about the state of a quantum system is to apply some non-deterministic process and observe which of the branches happened. For that reason, many people refer to the act of applying certain quantum processes as measurement and sometimes even as observation . A consequence of this unfortunate terminology is that one of the most touted ‘strange’ features of quantum theory is often misleadingly described as follows: ‘The mere act of observing a quantum state changes it.’ ‘Misleading’, since the concept of measurement described in the previous paragraph is far from the passive concept of observation familiar from our macroscopic world, but is rather a non-trivial process that will almost always drastically affect the quantum state. So, the mysterious aspect of quantum theory is not that ‘observation’ alters the quantum state but, rather, that it is impossible, even in principle, to ‘observe’ a quantum system in the classical sense. Given this fundamental restriction on how we can extract information from a quantum system, what can we learn about that system by means of a quantum process? The answer is, in fact, very little! First, performing a particular measurement could, for the vast majority of quantum states, yield any outcome i with a non-zero probability. In that case, obtaining an outcome i doesn't tell us much about what the state of the system was. Second, we say ‘was’, because the measurement will moreover irreversibly change the state according to the outcome. So rather than revealing the state of a system, a quantum measurement typically erases that state from history! Nonetheless, these quantum measurements are crucial to quantum theory since they constitute the only interface between us, in our classical world, and the quantum world. The great insight of the quantum computing community is that the non-deterministic changes induced by these quantum measurements are not a nuisance, but rather an extremely useful resource.

Cambridge University Press eBooks•Mar 16, 2017•0 citations
I shall discuss two recently suggested quantum experiments. These experiments lead to paradoxical situations. I will argue that in the framework of a particular Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum theory the paradoxes do not arise. The first experiment is the “interaction-free measurement” (Elitzur and Vaidman 1993). The experimental group at Innsbruck headed by Prof. Zeilinger is working now on its realization. Before describing the experiment let me discuss a general question: “How do we know that there is an object in a region of space?” The simplest case is when the object itself causes some physical changes outside the region: i) The object is charged, so there is a field outside. We can measure this field. ii) The object yields a potential outside. Aharonov and Bohm have taught us that potential even without field leads to a measurable effect. iii) The objects radiates photons or other particles.
In 1993 Elitzur and Vaidmannl (EV) demonstrated that quantum mechanics permits the use of light quanta to examine an object without a single photon having actually interacted with the object, requiring only the possibility of such an interaction. The EV scenario has recently been carried out in the laboratory and its predictions verified. EV discussed their scenario in terms of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which the interaction-free result is rather mysterious, using a “knowledge” not available classically. They also used the Everett-Wheeler interpretation and suggested that the information indicating the presence of the opaque object comes from an interaction in a separate Everett-Wheeler universe, with the information communicated to our universe through the absence of interference. In the present work, we will examine the EV interaction-free scenario in terms of the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics2 and will provide a more plausible account of the physical processes that make possible quantum interaction-free measurements.
Recently, it has been pointed out that it is possible to make a quantum-mechanical interaction-free measurement (IFM), in which the existence of an object in a given region of space may be determined seemingly without interacting with it.1,2 In the embodiment first proposed by Elitzur and Vaidman,3 a standard Michelson interferometer is aligned so that incident single photons (obtained in our experiment by using parametric downconversion; see Fig. 1) must exit by the same port in which they entered, in the absence of any object within the interferometer. The presence of an object (e.g., the mirror leading to detector DB) in one of the arms completely changes the possible outcomes because the constructive interference is interrupted. Now it is possible that the photon will exit from the other exit port, to detector DIfm. By detecting the photon in this case, one can claim with certainty that an object was within the interferometer, even though the photon could not have interacted with it. If the beam splitter has a very low reflectivity, then the fraction of IFMs approaches 1/2.
The basic thesis of this book is that there is no quantum measurement problem. I do not mean by this that the apparent paradoxes of quantum mechanics arise because we fail to recognize ‘that quantum theory does not describe physical reality’ (Fuchs and Peres 2000a). Quantum theory describes reality just fine, like any other scientific theory worth taking seriously: describing (and explaining) reality is what the scientific enterprise is about. Nor do I mean that we have found solutions to the problem, ways to modify or supplement quantum mechanics so that the paradoxes are removed. I don’t actually think that we have found any very satisfactory solutions in this sense (at least not in the relativistic domain) but that isn’t my theme: even if we did have these modifications, they would be ways of changing from quantum physics, which supposedly does have a measurement problem, to some other theory, which supposedly doesn’t.
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. – Max Planck, 1936 The only way quantum theory allows us to interact with quantum systems is via quantum processes. Thus, the only way we can extract information about the state of a quantum system is to apply some non-deterministic process and observe which of the branches happened. For that reason, many people refer to the act of applying certain quantum processes as measurement and sometimes even as observation . A consequence of this unfortunate terminology is that one of the most touted ‘strange’ features of quantum theory is often misleadingly described as follows: ‘The mere act of observing a quantum state changes it.’ ‘Misleading’, since the concept of measurement described in the previous paragraph is far from the passive concept of observation familiar from our macroscopic world, but is rather a non-trivial process that will almost always drastically affect the quantum state. So, the mysterious aspect of quantum theory is not that ‘observation’ alters the quantum state but, rather, that it is impossible, even in principle, to ‘observe’ a quantum system in the classical sense. Given this fundamental restriction on how we can extract information from a quantum system, what can we learn about that system by means of a quantum process? The answer is, in fact, very little! First, performing a particular measurement could, for the vast majority of quantum states, yield any outcome i with a non-zero probability. In that case, obtaining an outcome i doesn't tell us much about what the state of the system was. Second, we say ‘was’, because the measurement will moreover irreversibly change the state according to the outcome. So rather than revealing the state of a system, a quantum measurement typically erases that state from history! Nonetheless, these quantum measurements are crucial to quantum theory since they constitute the only interface between us, in our classical world, and the quantum world. The great insight of the quantum computing community is that the non-deterministic changes induced by these quantum measurements are not a nuisance, but rather an extremely useful resource.