We analyze statistical consequences of a conjecture that there exists a fundamental (indivisible) quant of time. We study particle dynamics with discrete time. We show that a quantum-like interference pattern could appear as a statistical effect for deterministic particles, i.e. particles that have trajectories and obey deterministic dynamical equations, if one introduces a discrete time. As a demonstration of this concept we consider particle scattering on a screen with a slit. We study how resulting interference picture depends on the parameters of the model. The resulting interference picture has a nontrivial minimum-maximum distribution which vanishes, as the time discreteness parameter goes to zero. This picture is qualitatively the same as one obtained in quantum experiments. The picture includes some interesting nonclassical properties such as a 'black' region behind the center of the slit.
Wigner entropy conjecture and the interference formula in quantum phase space
Wyant College of Optical Sciences, The University of Arizona（亚利桑那大学怀特光学科学学院）；DIENS, École Normale Supérieure, PSL University, CNRS, INRIA (QAT)（巴黎高等师范学院，PSL大学，法国国家科学研究中心，INRIA（QAT））
Calculating the capacity of interference channels is a notorious open problem in classical information theory. Such channels have two senders and two receivers, and each sender would like to communicate with a partner receiver. The capacity of such channels is known exactly in the settings of "very strong" and "strong" interference, while the Han-Kobayashi coding strategy gives the best known achievable rate region in the general case. Here, we introduce and study the quantum interference channel, a natural generalization of the interference channel to the setting of quantum information theory…
It is well known that in a two-slit interference experiment, if the information, on which of the two paths the particle followed, is stored in a quantum path detector, the interference is destroyed. However, in a setup where this path information is "erased", the interference can reappear. Such a setup is known as a quantum eraser. A generalization of quantum eraser to a three-slit interference is theoretically analyzed. It is shown that three complementary interference patterns can arise out of the quantum erasing process.
Quantum theory permits interference between indistinguishable paths but, at the same time, restricts its order. Single-particle interference, for instance, is limited to the second order, that is, to pairs of single-particle paths. To date, all experimental efforts to search for higher-order interferences beyond those compatible with quantum mechanics have been based on such single-particle schemes. However, quantum physics is not bounded to single-particle interference. We here experimentally study many-particle higher-order interference using a two-photon-five-slit setup. We observe nonzero …
One-dimensional discrete-time quantum walk has played an important role in development of quantum algorithms and protocols for different quantum simulations. The speedup observed in quantum walk algorithms is attributed to quantum interference and coherence of the wave packet in position space. Similarly, localization in quantum walk due to disorder is also attributed to quantum interference effect. Therefore, it is intriguing to have a closer look and understand the way quantum interference manifests in different forms of quantum walk dynamics. Quantum coherence in the system is responsible f…
We observe quantum, Hong-Ou-Mandel, interference of fields produced by two remote atomic memories. High-visibility interference is obtained by utilizing the finite atomic memory time in four-photon delayed coincidence measurements. Interference of fields from remote atomic memories is a crucial element in protocols for scalable generation of multi-node remote qubit entanglement.
Recent experiments in quantum optics have shed light on the foundations of quantum physics. Quantum erasers - modified quantum interference experiments - show that quantum entanglement is responsible for the complementarity principle.
We develop a rigorous connection between statistical properties of an interference pattern and the coherence properties of the underlying quantum state. With explicit examples, we demonstrate that even for inaccurate reconstructions of interference patterns properly defined statistical moments permit a reliable characterization of quantum coherence.
The two-photon ghost interference experiment, generalized to the case of massive particles, is theoretically analyzed. It is argued that the experiment is intimately connected to a double-slit interference experiment where, the which-path information exists. The reason for not observing first order interference behind the double-slit, is clarified.It is shown that the underlying mechanism for the appearance of ghost interference is, the more familiar, quantum erasure.
We study the role of interference in the process of quantum cloning. We show that in order to achieve better than classical cloning of a qubit no interference is needed. In particular, a large class of symmetric universal 1$\to$ 2 qubit cloners exists which achieve the optimal average fidelity 5/6 for such machines, without using any interference. We also obtain optimal average fidelities for interference--free cloning in asymmetric situations, and discuss the relation of the quantum cloners found to the Bužek--Hillery quantum cloner.
The exactly analytical solutions for the dynamics of the dissipative three-level V-type and $Λ$-type atomic systems in the vacuum Lorentzian environments are presented. Quantum interference phenomenon between the two transitions in V-type atomic system is studied and the intuitive interference conditions are derived. For the dissipative $Λ$-type atomic system, we demonstrate that the similar quantum interference phenomenon does not exist. Finally, we study the dynamical evolution of quantum Fisher information, quantum entanglement and quantum coherence for the V-type atomic system. We find tha…
We examine the role that interference plays in quantum state transfer through several types of finite spin chains, including chains with isotropic Heisenberg interaction between nearest neighbors, chains with reduced coupling constants to the spins at the end of the chain, and chains with anisotropic coupling constants. We evaluate quantitatively both the interference corresponding to the propagation of the entire chain, and the interference in the effective propagation of the first and last spins only, treating the rest of the chain as black box. We show that perfect quantum state transfer is…
We analyze the double slit interference of a mesoscopic particle. We calculate the visibility of the interference pattern, introduce a characteristic temperature that defines the onset to decoherence and scrutinize the conditions that must be satisfied for an interference experiment to be possible.
We consider a pair of three-level atoms interacting with the vacuum. The process of disentanglement due to spontaneous emission and the role of quantum interference between principal transitions in this process, are analysed. We show that the presence of interference can slow down disentanglement. In the limit of maximal interference, some part of initial entanglement can survive.
We experimently demonstrate the interference of dephasing quantum channel using single photon Mach-Zender interferometer. We extract the information inaccessible to the technology of quantum tomography. Further, We introduce the application of our results in quantum key distribution.
The double-slit experiment is the most direct demonstration of interference between individual quantum objects. Since similar experiments with single particles and more slits produce interference fringes reducible to a combination of double-slit patterns it is usually argued that quantum interference occurs between pairs of trajectories, compactly denoted as second-order interference. Here we show that quantum mechanics in fact allows for interference of arbitrarily high order. This occurs naturally when one considers multiple quantum objects interacting in the presence of a nonlinearity, both…
This is a comment on the paper : Quantum Interference between Light Sources Separated by 150 Million Kilometers by Deng et al, PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 123, 080401 (2019)
The characterization of quantum correlations is crucial to the development of new quantum technologies and to understand how dramatically quantum theory departs from classical physics. Here we systematically study single- and multiparticle interference patterns produced by general two- and three-qubit systems. From this we establish on phenomenological grounds a new type of quantum correlation for these systems, which we name quantum interference, deriving some quantifiers that are given explicitly in terms of the density matrix elements of the complete system. By using these quantifiers, we s…
We observe quantum interference of photons emitted by two continuously laser-excited single ions, independently trapped in distinct vacuum vessels. High contrast two-photon interference is observed in two experiments with different ion species, calcium and barium. Our experimental findings are quantitatively reproduced by Bloch equation calculations. In particular, we show that the coherence of the individual resonance fluorescence light field is determined from the observed interference.
We study the non-Markovian quantum interference phenomenon of a multi-state atomic system coupled to a bosonic dissipative environment by using the exact master equations derived in this paper. Two examples involving four-level systems with or without external control fields are investigated. Our results show that non-Markovian master equations are capable of exhibiting quantum interference phenomena in a temporal domain that has not fully explored before. In particular, we show that the environmental memory is instrumental in the onset of non-Markovian quantum interference pattern in differen…
We propose the concept of pair-wise coherence to study the relation between the l1 norm of coherence and the quantum interference in Young's multi-photon multi-path experiments, where the input photons may be entangled each other. We find that only the local coherence of each single photon can make quantum interference and the collective coherence between photons has no contribution to quantum interference. The visibility of interference fringe is commonly less than the l1norm of coherence of the corresponding input state, suggesting that the l1 norm of coherence is only the necessary but not …
Are there physical, probabilistic or information-theoretic principles which characterize the quantum probabilities and distinguish them from the classical case as well as from other probability theories, or which reveal why quantum mechanics requires its very special mathematical formalism? The paper identifies the fundamental absence of third-order interference as such a principle of `quantumness'. Considering three-slit experiments, the concept of third-order interference was originally introduced by Sorkin in 1994.
We study the influence of errors and decoherence on both the performance of Shor's factoring algorithm and Grover's search algorithm, and on the amount of interference in these algorithms using a recently proposed interference measure. We consider systematic unitary errors, random unitary errors, and decoherence processes. We show that unitary errors which destroy the interference destroy the efficiency of the algorithm, too. However, unitary errors may also create useless additional interference. In such a case the total amount of interference can increase, while the efficiency of the quantum…
A quantitative measure of quantum coherence was recently introduced, in the context of quantum information theory. This measure has also been propounded as a good quantifier of the wave nature of quantum objects. However, actually measuring coherence in an experiment is still considered a challenge. A procedure for measuring coherence in a multi-slit interference is proposed here. It can be used for experimentally testing duality relations for interference experiments involving more than two slits.
Quantum information technology is one of the fastest growing sectors within information technology. By misleading interpretations of Bohr's definition of complementarity, the foundation of nonlocal correlations of entanglement is concealed and therefore, such nonlocal effects can apparently not be utilized directly in information technology. As the first step to identify the utilizable nonlocal property of entanglement, this paper adjusts the notion of complementarity of first-order and second-order interference. Especially, the nonlocal consequence of the "principle of least action" for entan…
We propose a scheme for generating entangled states for two superconducting quantum interference devices in a thermal cavity with the assistance of a microwave pulse.
We report a two-photon interference experiment in which the detected photons have very different properties. The interference is observed even when no effort is made to mask the distinguishing features before the photons are detected. The results can only be explained in terms of indistinguishable two-photon amplitudes.
Quantum states can in a sense be thought of as generalizations of classical probability distributions, but are more powerful than probability distributions when used for computation or communication. Quantum speedup therefore requires some feature of quantum states that classical probability distributions lack. One such feature is interference. We quantify interference and show that there can be no quantum speedup due to a small number of operations incapable of generating large amounts of interference (although large numbers of such operations can in fact lead to quantum speedup). Low-interfe…
Integrated quantum photonic waveguide circuits are a promising approach to realizing future photonic quantum technologies. Here, we present an integrated photonic quantum technology platform utilising the silicon-on-insulator material system, where quantum interference and the manipulation of quantum states of light are demonstrated in components orders of magnitude smaller than in previous implementations. Two-photon quantum interference is presented in a multi-mode interference coupler, and manipulation of entanglement is demonstrated in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, opening the way to an a…
As a fundamental postulate of quantum mechanics, Born's rule assigns probabilities to the measurement outcomes of quantum systems and excludes multi-order quantum interference. Here we report an experiment on a single spin in diamond to test Born's rule by inspecting the third-order quantum interference. The ratio of the third-order quantum interference to the second-order in our experiment is ceiled at the scale of $10^{-3}$, which provides a stringent constraint on the potential breakdown of Born's rule.
We present one- and two-photon diffraction and interference experiments involving parametric down-converted photon pairs. By controlling the divergence of the pump beam in parametric down-conversion, the diffraction-interference pattern produced by an object changes from a quantum (perfectly correlated) case to a classical (uncorrelated) one. The observed diffraction and interference patterns are accurately reproduced by Fourier-optical analysis taking into account the quantum spatial correlation. We show that the relation between the spatial correlation and the object size plays a crucial rol…
Interference between fully-independent faint laser sources over two 8.5-km full polarization-controlled fiber links was performed, with stable visibility of 47.8%, an essential step towards practical implementation of quantum communication protocols.
We report the first demonstration of quantum interference in multimode interference (MMI) devices and a new complete characterization technique that can be applied to any photonic device that removes the need for phase stable measurements. MMI devices provide a compact and robust realization of NxM optical circuits, which will dramatically reduce the complexity and increase the functionality of future generations of quantum photonic circuits.
We show that quantum interference can be classically interpreted in terms of a phase invariant quantity, not unlike the Berry's phase. Under this interpretation, closed loops in time become fundamental quantum entities, and all quantum states become periodic. Decoherence is then seen to occur naturally as a consequence. This formalism, although counterintuitive, provides a useful way of assigning ``classical'' meaning to quantum probabilities.
We study a general theory on the interference of a two-photon wavepacket in a beam splitter. The theory is carried out in the Schrödinger picture so that the quantum nature of the two-photon interference is explicitly presented. We find that the topological symmetry of the probability-amplitude spectrum of the two-photon wavepacket dominates the manners of two-photon interference which are distinguished according to increasing and decreasing the coincidence probability for the absence of interference. However, two-photon entanglement can be witnessed by the interference manner. We demonstrate …
The advent of quantum computing has challenged classical conceptions of which problems are efficiently solvable in our physical world. This motivates the general study of how physical principles bound computational power. In this paper we show that some of the essential machinery of quantum computation -- namely reversible controlled transformations and the phase kick-back mechanism -- exist in any operational-defined theory with a consistent notion of information. These results provide the tools for an exploration of the physics underpinning the structure of computational algorithms. We use t…
Quantum interference lies at the heart of several quantum computational speed-ups and provides a striking example of a phenomenon with no classical counterpart. An intriguing feature of quantum interference arises in a three slit experiment. In this set-up, the interference pattern can be written in terms of the two and one slit patterns obtained by blocking some of the slits. This is in stark contrast with the standard two slit experiment, where the interference pattern is irreducible. This was first noted by Rafael Sorkin, who asked why quantum theory only exhibits irreducible interference i…
We discuss the possibility of quantum interferences and entanglement of photons which exist at different intervals of time, i.e., one photon being recorded before the other has been created. The corresponding two-photon correlation function is shown to violate Bell's inequalities.
With quantum interference of two-path spontaneous emissions, we propose a novel scheme to coherently control the atom--photon momentum entanglement through atomic internal coherence. A novel phenomenon called ``momentum phase entanglement'' is reported, and we found, under certain conditions, that more controllable entangled state can be produced with super--high degree of entanglement.
We present a general theory to describe two-photon interference, including a formal description of few photon intereference in terms of single-photon amplitudes. With this formalism, it is possible to describe both frequency entangled and separable two-photon interference in terms of single-photon wave functions. Using this description, we address issues related to the physical interpretation of two-photon interference experiments. We include a discussion on how few-photon interference can be interpreted as a bosonic exchange effect, and how this relates to traditional exchange effects with fe…
We report generation of a new quantum interference effect in spontaneous emission from a resonantly driven system of two identical two-level atoms due to the spatial variation of the laser phase at the positions of the atoms. This interference affects significantly the spectral features of the emitted radiation and the quantum entanglement in the system. The interference leads to dynamic coupling of the populations and coherences in a basis, determined by the laser phase and represents a kind of vacuum mediated super-exchange between the symmetric and antisymmetric states.
We discuss quantum interference phenomena in a system consisting from a laser driven three-level ladder-type emitter possessing orthogonal transition dipoles and embedded in a leaking optical resonator. The cavity mean-photon number vanishes due to the destructive nature of the interference phenomena. The effect occurs for some particular parameter regimes which were identified. Furthermore, upper bare-state population inversion occurs as well.
This note is a comment on the "quantum interferometry" section of Reference [1]. It points out that the methods of that section can be applied to more general states than the ones that are discussed in Ref. [1].
We study the amount of interference in random quantum algorithms using a recently derived quantitative measure of interference. To this end we introduce two random circuit ensembles composed of random sequences of quantum gates from a universal set, mimicking quantum algorithms in the quantum circuit representation. We show numerically that these ensembles converge to the well--known circular unitary ensemble (CUE) for general complex quantum algorithms, and to the Haar orthogonal ensemble (HOE) for real quantum algorithms. We provide exact analytical formulas for the average and typical inter…
