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New Journal of Physics

Geometric phases arising from strong measurements of weak values

C. Montenegro La Torre, M Jara, J P Marrou, F. De Zela

Published Nov 26, 2024• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Geometric phases and weak values (WVs) are two fundamental concepts that were originally introduced in the realm of quantum mechanics. In the course of time, it became clear that the two concepts apply in both the quantum domain and the classical domain. Moreover, the two concepts proved to be intimately connected with one another, as disclosed by Sjöqvist some years ago (Sjöqvist 2006 Phys. Lett. A 359 187). WVs were so named in reference to very weak couplings between a system’s observable, e.g. light polarization, and its measuring device, the ‘pointer’. However, the actual definition of WVs does not involve the system-pointer coupling strength. We have addressed the strong coupling regime both theoretically and experimentally, thereby obtaining geometric phases out of WVs. We report experimental results as a proof-of-concept, using classical light beams and single-shot images. Our approach applies without essential modifications also to single photons.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/ad9771

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Abstract Geometric phases and weak values (WVs) are two fundamental concepts that were originally introduced in the realm of quantum mechanics. In the course of time, it became clear that the two concepts apply in both the quantum domain and the classical domain. Moreover, the two concepts proved to be intimately connected with one another, as disclosed by Sjöqvist some years ago (Sjöqvist 2006 Phys. Lett. A 359 187). WVs were so named in reference to very weak couplings between a system’s observable, e.g. light polarization, and its measuring device, the ‘pointer’. However, the actual definition of WVs does not involve the system-pointer coupling strength. We have addressed the strong coupling regime both theoretically and experimentally, thereby obtaining geometric phases out of WVs. We report experimental results as a proof-of-concept, using classical light beams and single-shot images. Our approach applies without essential modifications also to single photons.
The physical meaning of the quantum weak value still remains a matter of debate. Originally introduced by Aharonov et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 1351 (1988).] as another counterintuitive feature of quantum mechanics, it eventually evolved into a practical tool that is widely used. The theoretical framework in which weak values were introduced was given by von Neumann's model of quantum measurements. In this model, a system is submitted to measurement by coupling it to a ``pointer,'' or meter. In the weak-coupling regime, one may perform a low-order Taylor expansion for the evolution operator of the system and meter. This standard approach ties weak values with weak couplings and weak measurements. We report closed-form expressions that can be used to untie weak values from weak measurements. The regime of strong measurements thereby becomes accessible to weak values, without leaving the framework in which the latter were originally introduced. The reported results should also help us to better understand the physical meaning of weak values.
The physical interpretation of weak measurements has been the subject of much debate. It is known that anomalous phenomena and results that appear in weak measurements are essentially related to the phase of the quantum system being measured. Consideration of the phase is important to clarify its physical interpretation. In classical wave optics, there has long been studies on methods of measuring or retrieving the phase of a wave function. We here present that one of those methods, the analytic phase retrieval based on the properties of entire functions, has a close connection with weak measurements in quantum physics. We explain such a connection for two emblematic optical weak-measurements that have the same mathematical formalism as quantum systems: one is a system for weak measurements of polarized light displacement in a birefringent crystal, and the other is a system for the direct measurement of a wave function by weakly coupling it to a pointer. In those two systems, we show that the pre- and post-selection of polarized light provides a filtering effect similar to that utilized in the analytic phase retrieval.
Abstract Even though weak measurements and weak value amplification (WVA) are founded on the principles of quantum mechanics and quantum measurements, these have found widespread applications in optics due to their inherent origin in wave interference. Besides their use in addressing foundational questions of quantum mechanics or for resolving quantum paradoxes, weak measurements and WVA have thus been used for numerous metrological applications, e.g., quantification of small optical beam displacement, tiny angular rotation, determination of extremely small phase shifts, spectral shifts, unraveling weak fundamental optical effects, improved optical imaging, amplifying weak signal and extracting small physical parameters and so forth. In this review, after providing the mathematical foundation of weak measurement and WVA, some of the metrological applications of weak measurements in the classical optics domain are briefly summarized, and the controversies and debates on the potential advantages of WVA in the estimation and detection of weak signal are discussed, and the interferometric philosophy of WVA is elucidated. The experimental weak measurement and WVA schemes in the domain of quantum optics are also discussed and highlighted the new perspectives and emerging trends of weak measurements in both the classical and quantum optics domain and their prospects in the development of next‐generation ultra‐sensitive optical devices.
We experimentally demonstrate a fundamental relationship between the weak value of an observable and the complex zero of the response function of a system by employing weak measurement on spin Hall shift of a Gaussian light beam. Using this relationship, we show that extremely large weak values far beyond its upper bound in the conventional linear-response regime can be experimentally obtained from the position of the minima of the pointer intensity profile corresponding to the real part of the complex zero of the response function. The imaginary part of the complex zero, on the other hand, is related to the spatial gradient of the geometric phase of light, which in this particular scenario evolves due to the weak interaction and the pre- and postselections of the polarization states. These relationships between the weak value and the complex zeros of the response function may provide new insights on weak measurements in a wide class of physical systems. Extraction of large weak values outside the usual domain of its validity and quantification of small interaction parameters using a physically meaningful and experimentally accessible system property such as the response function may open up a new paradigm of weak measurement.
The formalism of weak measurement in quantum mechanics has revealed profound connections between measurement theory, quantum foundations, and signal processing. In this paper, we develop a pointer-free derivation of superoscillations, demonstrating that they are a natural and necessary consequence of the geometric structure underlying weak values. We argue that the weak value is best understood as a ratio of geometric deformation, quantifying how an observable transforms the structure of Hilbert space relative to a reference provided by the standard inner product. This deformation acts as a conceptual lens, warping the local structure of quantum states to produce oscillations far exceeding the global Fourier bandwidth. We formalize this by interpreting the weak value as a comparison between a deformed sesquilinear form and the standard one, and explore its deep connections to generalized Rayleigh quotients and the projective geometry of quantum states. This perspective unifies weak values and superoscillations as two facets of a single underlying geometric principle.