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arXiv · 1610.04464

Experimental weak measurement of two non-commuting observables

Gilles Pütz·Tomer Barnea·Nicolas Gisin·Anthony Martin
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Abstract

The fact that not all quantum observables are jointly measurable is one of the major differences between quantum and classical theory. In the former, non-commuting observables can only be simultaneously measured with limited precision. We report on an experimental implementation of such a simultaneous measurement of two non-commuting observables based on the framework of weak von Neumann measurements. We use a photonic setup where the polarisation degree of freedom acts as the system and the two components of the transversal position correspond to the pointers of the measurement apparatuses. In addition, the theory shows that these weak measurements demonstrate a counter-intuitive non-monotonicity: weaker measurements can potentially reveal more information than stronger ones.

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Gilles Pütz, Tomer Barnea, Nicolas Gisin, Anthony Martin. 2016-10-14. Experimental weak measurement of two non-commuting observables. https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.04464

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