Incompatible Observables and the Measurement of Berry’s Phases

K. Datta

R. Y. Chiao, Paul G. Kwiat, William A. Vareka +1 more

The Berry phases most often observed in experiments are produced by rotations. Berry phases produced by Lorentz transformations are almost as simple mathematically. They have been discussed at length, but there has been no suggestion of observing them in an experiment. Indeed, it has been shown that in one context they can be removed by a canonical transformation; thus they appear to be a property of the mathematical description that could not be observed physically. Here we show that the essential element of these Berry phases could be observed as a change of phase of the electromagnetic field in squeezed states of light or microwaves, as could be produced by degenerate parametric amplifiers. It could be seen as a fringe shift in interference experiments. In this way, a physical effect of the squeezing could be measured without measuring anything like photon statistics or noise.

Heinz Dieter Dombrowski

Arthur L. Robinson

Robert S. Whitney, Yuval Gefen

We investigate the effect of the environment on a Berry phase measurement involving a spin-half. We model the spin + environment using a biased spin-boson Hamiltonian with a time-dependent magnetic field. We find that, contrary to naive expectations, the Berry phase acquired by the spin can be observed, but only on time scales which are neither too short nor very long. However this Berry phase is not the same as for the isolated spin-half. It does not have a simple geometric interpretation in terms of the adiabatic evolution of either bare spin states or the dressed spin resonances. This result is crucial for proposed Berry phase measurements in superconducting nanocircuits.

Tomonori Otsuka