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Physical Review A

Visibility is not a good measure of a well-defined relative phase

Gunnar G. Bjork, Shuichiro Inoue, Jonas Söderholm

Published Jul 20, 2000• 10 citations

Abstract

In a recent paper Marburger and Das [J. H. Marburger III and K. K. Das, Phys. Rev. A 59, 2213 (1999)] considered an interference visibility experiment involving two weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensates. It was shown that condensate eigenstates of the Hermitian relative phase operator do not give interference fringes with unit visibility in a Young's double slit type of experiment. The authors concluded that ``\dots{} these states are not especially well suited to describe weakly interacting multiply occupied coherent bosonic systems.'' In this work we suggest a criterion for states with a well-defined relative phase. Subsequently we show that the relative phase operator eigenstates satisfy this criterion. This suggests that the concept of interference visibility can, and should, be generalized, since it is widely believed that interference visibility is a measure of the relative phase properties. We therefore propose a broader, but still operational, definition of interference visibility, which we call generalized visibility, and prove that the relative phase operator eigenstates indeed can show unit generalized visibility. We also derive a simple, but general, criterion for states which can display a unit generalized visibility. Somewhat surprisingly, this criterion is weaker than the criterion for a well-defined relative phase. Finally, we discuss which two-mode states can display unit (ordinary) visibility.

DOI: 10.1103/physreva.62.023817

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In a recent paper Marburger and Das [J. H. Marburger III and K. K. Das, Phys. Rev. A 59, 2213 (1999)] considered an interference visibility experiment involving two weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensates. It was shown that condensate eigenstates of the Hermitian relative phase operator do not give interference fringes with unit visibility in a Young's double slit type of experiment. The authors concluded that ``\dots{} these states are not especially well suited to describe weakly interacting multiply occupied coherent bosonic systems.'' In this work we suggest a criterion for states with a well-defined relative phase. Subsequently we show that the relative phase operator eigenstates satisfy this criterion. This suggests that the concept of interference visibility can, and should, be generalized, since it is widely believed that interference visibility is a measure of the relative phase properties. We therefore propose a broader, but still operational, definition of interference visibility, which we call generalized visibility, and prove that the relative phase operator eigenstates indeed can show unit generalized visibility. We also derive a simple, but general, criterion for states which can display a unit generalized visibility. Somewhat surprisingly, this criterion is weaker than the criterion for a well-defined relative phase. Finally, we discuss which two-mode states can display unit (ordinary) visibility.

We show that if two multiply occupied boson modes are in eigenstates of the Hermitian relative phase operator, then the visibility of fringes formed by the interference between the modes is necessarily less than unity. For large total occupation numbers the visibility becomes $V<~\ensuremath{\pi}/4.$ States with definite relative phase and unit visibility do exist. They are related to coherent states and are not orthogonal (not eigenstates of a Hermitian phase operator). This visibility limitation may make it possible to investigate experimentally the physical role of the relative phase eigenstates in interference measurements such as those on Bose-Einstein condensates.

Using a model many-body wave function I analyze the standard criterion for Bose-Einstein condensation and its relation to coherence properties of the system. I pay special attention to an attractive condensate under such a condition that a characteristic length scale of the spatial extension of its center of mass differs significantly from length scales of relative coordinates. I show that although no interference fringes are produced in the two-slit Young interference experiment performed on this system, fringes of a high visibility can be observed in a conditional simultaneous detection of two particles.

We propose for the experimental verification of an inequality concerning wave-particle duality by Englert [Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 2154 (1996)] relating (or setting) an upper limit on distinguishability and visibility in a two-way interferometer. The inequality, quantifies the concept of wave-particle duality. The considered two-way interferometer is a Young's double-slit experiment involving two four-level atoms and is a slightly modified version of that of the recent experiment by Eichmann et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 2359 (1993)]. The fringe visibility depends on the detected polarization direction of the scattered light and a read out of the internal state of one of the two atoms provides a partial which-way information.

Relative phase is treated as a physical quantity for two mode systems in quantum atom optics, adapting the Pegg-Barnett treatment of quantum optical phase to define a linear Hermitian relative phase operator via first introducing a complete orthonormal set of relative phase eigenstates. These states are contrasted with other so-called phase states. Other approaches to treating phase and previous attempts to find a Hermitian phase operator are discussed. The relative phase eigenstate has maximal two mode entanglement, it is a fragmented state with its Bloch vector lying inside the Bloch sphere and is highly spin squeezed. The relative phase states are applied to describing interferometry experiments with Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC), particularly in the context of a proposed Heisenberg limited interferometry experiment. For a relative phase eigenstate the fractional fluctuation in one spin operator component perpendicular to the Bloch vector is essentially only of order 1/N, so if such a highly spin squeezed state could be prepared it may be useful for Heisenberg limited interferometry. An approach for preparing a BEC in a state close to a relative phase state is suggested, based on adiabatically changing parameters in the Josephson Hamiltonian starting from a suitable energy eigenstate in the Rabi regime.

The interference observed for a quanton, traversing more than one path, is believed to characterize its wave nature. Conventionally, the sharpness of interference has been quantified by its visibility or contrast, as defined in optics. Based on this visibility, wave-particle duality relations have been formulated for two-path interference. However, as one generalizes the situation to multi-path interference, it is found that conventional interference visibility is not a good quantifier. A recently introduced measure of quantum coherence has been shown to be a good quantifier of the wave nature. The subject of quantum coherence, in relation to the wave nature of quantons and to interference visibility, is reviewed here. It is argued that coherence can be construed as a more general form of interference visibility, if the visibility is measured in a different manner, and not as contrast. Quanta 2019; 8: 24–35.

The quantum description of a Bose-Einstein condensates in double-well traps connected by a Josephson junction is discussed. The quantization in terms of the number and phase canonically-conjugated operators gives correct energy levels, but results in finite phase fluctuations in the absence of interaction. This seems to contradict the perfect coherence of a system of non-interacting particles. The problem can be solved by calculating the observables that characterize the coherence properties of a system, as, for example, the momentum distribution. It occurs that the visibility of interference fringes depends both on the fluctuations of the phase and the number of atoms. The visibility is calculated in the limit of small interaction and the results exhibit the correct behavior. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.