Chinese Physics Letters

Complementarity via Minimum Error Measurement in a Two-Path Interferometer*

Junzhao Liu, Yanjun Liu, Jing Lu

Published May 1, 2019• 3 citations

Abstract

We study the fringe visibility and the which-path information (WPI) of a general Mach–Zehnder interferometer with an asymmetric beam splitter (BS). A minimum error measurement in the detector is used to extract the WPI. Both the fringe visibility V and the WPI Ipath are affected by the initial state of the photon and the second asymmetric BS. The condition in which the WPI takes the maximum is obtained. The complementarity relationship V 2 + I path 2 ≤ 1 is found, and the conditions for equality are also presented.

DOI: 10.1088/0256-307x/36/5/050302

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