We extend the idea of weak measurements to the general case, provide a complete treatment, and obtain results for both the regime when the preselected and postselected states (PPS) are almost orthogonal and the regime when they are exactly orthogonal. We surprisingly find that for a fixed interaction strength, there may exist a maximum signal amplification and a corresponding optimum overlap of PPS to achieve it. For weak measurements in the orthogonal regime, we find interesting quantities that play the same role that weak values play in the nonorthogonal regime.
Interpretations of an experiment on the backaction in a weak measurement in [Iinuma et al., New J. Phys. 13, 033041 (2011)] are revisited. We show two different but essentially equivalent interpretations for this experiment along the original scenario of weak measurements proposed by Aharonov, Albert, and Vaidman [Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 1351 (1988)]. To do this, we introduce the notion of extended weak values, which is associated not only with the states of the system but also the state of the measuring device. We also evaluate fluctuations in this experiment, and found that an optimal measurement strength exists for a fixed polarization angle prepared as an initial state, at which fluctuations in measurement results vanish. The consistency of this evaluation with the experimental results is discussed.
The weak-value (WV) measurement proposed by Aharonov, Albert, and Vaidman (AAV) has attracted a great deal of interest in connection with quantum metrology. In this paper, we extend the analysis beyond the AAV limit and obtain a few main results. (i) We obtain a nonperturbative result for the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In contrast to the AAV prediction, we find that the SNR asymptotically gets worse when the AAV WV
Aw becomes large, i.e., in the case $g|{A}_{w}{|}^{2}\ensuremath{\gg}1$, where
g is the measurement strength. (ii) With the increase of
g (but also small), we find that the SNR is comparable to the result under the AAV limit, while both can reach---actually the former can slightly exceed---the SNR of the standard measurement. However, with a further increase of
g, the WV technique will become less efficient than the standard measurement, despite the fact that the postselection probability is increased. (iii) We find that the Fisher information can characterize the estimate precision qualitatively well as the SNR, yet the difference will become more prominent with the increase of
g. (iv) We carry out analytic expressions of the SNR in the presence of technical noises and illustrate the particular advantage of the imaginary WV measurement. The nonperturbative result of the SNR manifests a favorable range of the noise strength and allows an optimal determination.
The weak measurement proposed by Aharonov and his colleagues extracts information about a physical quantity of the system by the postselection as shifts of the argument of the probe wave function. The more the postselected state is orthogonal to the preselected state, the larger the shift determined by the weak value becomes. Recently, the signal amplification by the weak measurement has been extensively studied. In the present work, we explicitly obtain the optimal probe wave function and the amplification factor for a given weak value, which is calculated from the experimental setup. It is shown that the amplification factor has no upper bound, in contrast to the Gaussian probe wave function, and that the amplified signal is sharp.
The weak measurement proposed by Aharonov and his colleagues extracts information of a physical quantity of the system by the post selection as the shifts of the argument of the probe wavefunction. The shift is called the weak value and is larger for the post-selected state more orthogonal to the initial state. Recently, the signal amplification by the weak measurement has been extensively studied. In the present work, we explicitly obtain the optimal probe wavefunction and the amplification factor for a given weak value, which is calculated from the experimental setup. It is shown that the amplification factor has no upper bound in contrast to the Gaussian probe wavefunction and that the amplified signal is sharp.
We analyze the amplification by the Aharonov-Albert-Vaidman weak quantum measurement on a Sagnac interferometer [Dixon et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 173601 (2009)] up to all orders of the coupling strength between the measured system and the measuring device. The amplifier transforms a small tilt of a mirror into a large transverse displacement of the laser beam. The conventional analysis has shown that the measured value is proportional to the weak value, so that the amplification can be made arbitrarily large in the cost of decreasing output laser intensity. It is shown that the measured displacement and the amplification factor are in fact not proportional to the weak value and rather vanish in the limit of infinitesimal output intensity. We derive the optimal overlap of the pre- and postselected states with which the amplification become maximum. We also show that the nonlinear effects begin to arise in the performed experiments so that any improvements in the experiment, typically with an amplification greater than 100, should require the nonlinear theory in translating the observed value to the original displacement.