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Acta Physica Polonica A

A Pointer Theory Explanation of Weak Value Persistence Occurring in the Quantum Three Box Experimental Data

Allen Parks, Scott E. Spence

Published Dec 1, 2016• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

A concise exact pointer theory for von Neumann projector measurements of pre-and post-selected quantum systems has previously been used to formalize the notion of weak value persistence and apply it to explain pointer position data collected from a dynamical quantum non-locality detection experiment.This paper applies this exact pointer theory to provide an operational explanation of weak value persistence observed in the data obtained from a recent quantum box experiment.

DOI
10.12693/aphyspola.130.1265

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A concise exact pointer theory for von Neumann projector measurements of pre-and post-selected quantum systems has previously been used to formalize the notion of weak value persistence and apply it to explain pointer position data collected from a dynamical quantum non-locality detection experiment.This paper applies this exact pointer theory to provide an operational explanation of weak value persistence observed in the data obtained from a recent quantum box experiment.
Abstract Exact expressions for the mean pointer position, the mean pointer momentum and their variances are obtained for projection operator measurements performed upon ensembles of pre- and postselected (PPS) and preselected-only (PSO) quantum systems. These expressions are valid for any interaction strength which couples a measurement pointer to a quantum system, and consequently should be of general interest to both experimentalists and theoreticians. To account for the ‘collapse’ of PPS states to PSO states that occurs as interaction strength increases and to introduce the concept of ‘weak value persistence’, the exact PPS and PSO pointer theories are combined to provide a pointer theory for statistical mixtures. For the purpose of illustrating ‘weak value persistence’, mixture weights defined in terms of the Bhattacharyya coefficient are used and the statistical mixture theory is applied to mean pointer position data associated with weak value projector measurements obtained from a recent dynamical quantum non-locality detection experiment.
Exact pointer states are obtained for projection operator measurements performed upon pre-selected (PS) and upon pre- and post-selected (PPS) quantum systems. These states are used to provide simple exact expressions for both the pointer spatial probability distribution profiles and the mean values of arbitrary pointer observables associated with PS and PPS projection operator measurements that are valid for any strength of the interaction which couples a measurement pointer to the quantum system. These profiles and mean values are compared in order to identify the effects of post-selection upon projector measurement pointers. As a special case, these mean value results are applied to the weak measurement regime - yielding PS and PPS mean value expressions which are valid for any operator (projector or non-projector). Measurement sensitivities which are useful for estimating weak measurement accuracies for PS and PPS systems are also obtained and discussed.
It is well known that the pointer state |Φ> resulting from the von Neumann measurement of a projection operator A performed upon an ensemble of quantum systems in the preselected state |ψ> depends upon A|ψ>. Here it is shown that the pointer state |Ψ> obtained from such a measurement performed upon an ensemble that is also postselected depends upon the weak value of A - regardless of the measurement interaction strength. It is also found that, while the spatial distribution of |Ψ> exhibits interference, the idempotency of A prohibits interference in that of |Φ>. This is explained in terms of welcher Weg information.
Weak measurement is a potentially powerful tool for studying post-selected quantum systems. The original approach to weak measurement requires a different von Neumann interaction between the quantum system and measurement pointer for weak values of every different observable. When studying weak values of properties of more than one particle, which is necessary for studying entanglement, these interactions can range from difficult to impossible to implement experimentally. For example, the measurement of properties on a pair of optical photons requires a strong Kerr-like nonlinearity at the two-photon level. In a recent work, we described a new method for extracting weak values of operators that can be expressed as products of two local, single-particle operators by studying the correlations in experimentally feasible local, single-particle measurements. In the present work, that theoretical approach is generalized so that weak values of products of N local, single-particle operators can be extracted from the correlations in N single-particle measurements.
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.
The AAV effect is the well-known phenomenon where a weak measurement followed by post-selection leads to a pointer shift proportional to the weak value of the measured observable. The effect is usually derived by considering a perturbative expansion of the time-evolution operator corresponding to the measurement. We show that the AAV effect can be instead derived given three simple conditions on the pointer states. The most important condition is that the pointer states be approximately indistinguishable. The other two conditions relate the observables used to characterize the pointer with the measured system observable. This intuitive approach does not require any model for the measurement process, but is completely consistent with the usual approach based on the von Neumann Hamiltonian. Moreover, this approach predicts and explains a new phenomenon, called weak echo, where the usual weak value behaviour can re-emerge at high interaction strengths.