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Physical Review A

Multiple-weak-value quantum measurement for precision estimation of time delay

Yongsheng Wang, Wenshuai Zhang, Shizhen Chen, Shuangchun Wen, Hailu Luo

Published Mar 25, 2022• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In quantum weak measurement, a weak value is a quantity related to a pointer shift of a measuring device which is usually determined by pre- and postselection states. For conventional weak measurement, a single weak-value model has been well addressed in precision metrology of time delay, but it only holds for a narrowband light source. To further improve the measurement accuracy, a broad-spectrum light source is needed. We find that the single weak-value model no longer holds, due to the occurrence of modified preselection states. Here, a multiple weak-value model is established by introducing the modified preselection states in the estimation of time delay. For broad-spectrum light source with 50-nm spectral width, the multiple weak-value scheme enables us to achieve a high resolution of $1.6\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{as}$. Our proposed multiple weak-value amplification may have important applications in various fields involving precise time-delay detection.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.105.033521

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•Sep 14, 2015•2 citations
In quantum weak measurement, a weak value is a quantity related to a pointer shift of a measuring device which is usually determined by pre- and postselection states. For conventional weak measurement, a single weak-value model has been well addressed in precision metrology of time delay, but it only holds for a narrowband light source. To further improve the measurement accuracy, a broad-spectrum light source is needed. We find that the single weak-value model no longer holds, due to the occurrence of modified preselection states. Here, a multiple weak-value model is established by introducing the modified preselection states in the estimation of time delay. For broad-spectrum light source with 50-nm spectral width, the multiple weak-value scheme enables us to achieve a high resolution of 1.6\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−4as1.6\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{as}1.6\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−4as. Our proposed multiple weak-value amplification may have important applications in various fields involving precise time-delay detection.
In the standard weak measurement, the imaginary part of the weak value is usually constructed with a specific pre- or postselection state to cause a large shift of the frequency-domain pointer. In this paper we demonstrate that the purely real weak value can also shift the frequency-domain pointer when using a broad-spectrum light source. The reason for the deflection of the frequency-domain pointer in this scheme is that the postselection probability of different frequency is different, which causes the rearrangement of the amplitudes of the spectrum. The weak measurement with real weak value can be used for the estimation of time delay, and it is found that it can reach the same high resolution as the standard weak measurement in some sensitive regions.
Standard weak measurement with an assistant pointer and single weak interaction constrains measurement precision and quantity of interaction parameters, and a compelling characterization of quantum effect featuring weak-value amplification (WVA) remains elusive. Here, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate an enhanced dual-pointer WVA scheme based on multiple weak interactions and variable spectrum sources. Developing triple weak interactions, momentum P pointer reaches an optimal time-difference precision of 3.34×10−53.34 \times {10^{-5}}3.34×10−5 as at 6 nm spectral width, and intensity I pointer achieves a displacement resolution of 148.8 fm within 400 kHz linewidth. A quantum effect associated with an anomalous weak value is revealed by an observable violation of a Leggett-Garg inequality. The I-pointer weak value is measured to be 1478 using multiple weak interactions and high signal-to-noise detection, achieving a two-order-of-magnitude WVA enhancement compared to standard weak measurement. Our work opens up a practical avenue for minuscule quantumness measurements in challenging environments.
Abstract Weak measurements have many applications in the field of quantum information due to the peculiar properties of weak values. Quantum weak measurement can be performed by two particles or two degree of freedom of single particle. The former needs complex operations, the latter require the reconstruction of the motion state wavepacket, which consumes substantial quantum resources. This paper presents a novel weak measurement scheme that encodes multiple internal energy levels of a single particle into the measured system and the measuring pointer, while defining a finite-coupling postselected pointer ratio (FCPR). The FCPR obtained from this scheme enables both weak value amplification and rapid experimental results. To verify these advantages, we measured the FCPR using a trapped 40 Ca + experimental setup and monitored fluctuations of the laser power within the experimental system. The results show that our scheme can detect weaker laser power fluctuations, thus providing higher precision for laser power locking.
By choosing more orthogonality between preselection and postselection states, one can significantly improve the sensitivity in general optical quantum metrology based on the weak-value amplification (WVA) approach. However, increasing the orthogonality decreases the probability of detecting photons and makes the weak measurement difficult, especially when the weak measurement is disturbed by strong noise and the pointer is drowned in noise with a negative-decibel signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In this article we introduce and numerically evaluate a modified weak-measurement protocol with a temporal pointer, namely, the autocorrelative weak-value amplification (AWVA) approach. Specifically, a small longitudinal time delay (tiny phase shift) $\ensuremath{\tau}$ of a Gaussian pulse is measured by implementing two simultaneous autocorrelative weak measurements under Gaussian white noise with different SNRs. The small quantities $\ensuremath{\tau}$ are obtained by measuring the autocorrelation coefficient of the pulses instead of fitting the shift of the mean value of the probe in the standard WVA technique. Simulation results show that the AWVA approach outperforms the standard WVA technique in the time domain with smaller statistical errors, remarkably increasing the precision of weak measurement under a strong noise background.
We propose to use weak measurements away from the weak-value amplification regime to carry out precision measurements of time delays of light. Our scheme is robust to several sources of noise that are shown to only limit the relative precision of the measurement. Thus, they do not set a limit on the smallest measurable phase shift, contrary to standard interferometry and weak-value-based measurement techniques. Our idea is not restricted to phase-shift measurements and could be used to measure other small effects using a similar protocol.
We derive a general theory for the joint weak measurement with arbitrary postselection and employ it in the time-delay measurement. Especially, we study two special cases, i.e., the balanced and unbalanced postselection regimes, and present an experiment to verify the theoretical results. The experimental results show that under similar conditions, the signal-to-noise ratio of using joint weak measurement scheme remains higher than 12 dB when the measured time-delay is smaller the ultimate precision limit of the weak-value amplification scheme. Moreover, the joint weak measurement scheme is robust to the misalignment errors and the wavelength-dependency of optical components, which indicates its advantage of improving the measurement precision with convenient laboratory equipments.