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arXiv:quant-ph/0301017 · Journal of Physics A Mathematical and General

On interferometric duality in multibeam experiments

Giuseppe Bimonte, R Musto

Published Oct 28, 2003• 37 citations
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Abstract

We critically analyse the problem of formulating duality between fringe visibility and which-way information, in multibeam interference experiments. We show that the traditional notion of visibility is incompatible with any intuitive idea of complementarity, but for the two-beam case. We derive a number of new inequalities, not present in the two-beam case, one of them coinciding with a recently proposed multibeam generalization of the inequality found by Greenberger and YaSin. We show, by an explicit procedure of optimization in a three-beam case, that suggested generalizations of Englert's inequality do not convey, differently from the two-beam case, the idea of complementarity, according to which an increase of visibility is at the cost of a loss in path information, and vice versa.

DOI
10.1088/0305-4470/36/45/009

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We critically analyse the problem of formulating duality between fringe visibility and which-way information, in multibeam interference experiments. We show that the traditional notion of visibility is incompatible with any intuitive idea of complementarity, but for the two-beam case. We derive a number of new inequalities, not present in the two-beam case, one of them coinciding with a recently proposed multibeam generalization of the inequality found by Greenberger and YaSin. We show, by an explicit procedure of optimization in a three-beam case, that suggested generalizations of Englert's inequality do not convey, differently from the two-beam case, the idea of complementarity, according to which an increase of visibility is at the cost of a loss in path information, and vice versa.
In a recent paper, D\"urr [Phys. Rev. A 64, 042113 (2001)] proposed an interesting multibeam generalization of the quantitative formulation of interferometric wave-particle duality, discovered by Englert for two-beam interferometers. The proposed generalization is an inequality that relates a generalized measure of the fringe visibility to certain measures of the maximum amount of which-way knowledge that can be stored in a which-way detector. We construct an explicit example where, with three beams in a pure state, the scheme proposed by D\"urr leads to the possibility of an ideal which-way detector that can achieve a better path discrimination at the same time as a better fringe visibility. In our opinion, this seems to be in contrast with the intuitive idea of complementarity, as it is implemented in the two-beams case, where an increase in path discrimination always implies a decrease of fringe visibility, if the beams and the detector are in pure states.
The issue of interference and which-way information is addressed in the context of three-slit interference experiments. A new path distinguishability |DQ\mathcal {D}_{Q}DQ​| is introduced, based on unambiguous quantum state discrimination. An inequality connecting the interference visibility and path distinguishability, |V+2DQ3−DQ≤1\mathcal {V} + {2\mathcal {D}_Q\over 3- \mathcal {D}_Q} \le 1V+3−DQ​2DQ​​≤1|⁠, is derived which puts a bound on how much fringe visibility and which-way information can be simultaneously obtained. It is argued that this bound is tight. For two-slit interference, we derive a new duality relation which reduces to Englert's duality relation and the Greenberger–Yasin duality relation, in different limits.
We propose for the experimental verification of an inequality concerning wave-particle duality by Englert [Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 2154 (1996)] relating (or setting) an upper limit on distinguishability and visibility in a two-way interferometer. The inequality, quantifies the concept of wave-particle duality. The considered two-way interferometer is a Young's double-slit experiment involving two four-level atoms and is a slightly modified version of that of the recent experiment by Eichmann et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 2359 (1993)]. The fringe visibility depends on the detected polarization direction of the scattered light and a read out of the internal state of one of the two atoms provides a partial which-way information.
Starting from the recoiling double slit gedanken experiment, protagonist of the debates between Einstein and Bohr, we study the main steps that led to the discussion of the complementarity between path information and interference visibility at intermediate domains, where each quantity is partially known. Trying to highlight the strategies of quantification of path knowledge, we emphasize the existence of two regimes of complementarity. The first regime, which leads to the formulation of Greenberger-Yasin duality, is based on predictive strategies. The second one, which leads to the formulation of Englert-Greenberger-Yasin duality (EGY), is based on the retrodiction of the path through the result of a measurement on an auxiliary system. In this second regime, we stress the point that the description of the auxiliary system through nonorthogonal quantum states is the essential ingredient in the derivation of EGY duality. Thus, the quantitative study of complementarity opens space for a close relationship with the strategies of discrimination of quantum states, which for a long time was mentioned in the literature only in a very subtle way. In addition, we also study recent works, which make use of a coherence quantifier and take important steps in obtaining interferometric dualities in a multipath scenario. At the end we present a preliminary form of generalization of these works in a three-way interferometer.
Different criteria (Shannon's entropy, Bayes' average cost, Durr's normalized rms spread) have been introduced to measure the information present in interference experiments where, due to non-orthogonality of the detector states, the path determination is incomplete. For each of these criteria, we determine the optimal measurement to be carried on the detectors, in order to read out the maximum which-way information. We show that, while in two-beam experiments, the optimal measurement is always provided by an observable involving the detector only, in multibeam experiments, with equally populated beams and two-state detectors, this is the case only for the Durr criterion, as the other two require the introduction of an ancillary quantum system, as part of the read-out apparatus.