Interaction-free effects between distant atoms

DOI10.1007/S10701-017-0127-YzbMATH Open1386.81011arXiv1610.07169OpenAlexW2544977854WikidataQ62568700 ScholiaQ62568700MaRDI QIDQ1742829FDOQ1742829

Avshalom C. Elitzur, Y. Aharonov, Lee Smolin, Eliahu Cohen

Publication date: 12 April 2018

Published in: Foundations of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: A Gedanken experiment is presented where an excited and a ground-state atom are positioned such that, within the former's half-life time, they exchange a photon with 50% probability. A measurement of their energy state will therefore indicate in 50% of the cases that no photon was exchanged. Yet other measurements would reveal that, by the mere possibility of exchange, the two atoms have become entangled. Consequently, the "no exchange" result, apparently precluding entanglement, is non-locally established between the atoms by this very entanglement. This quantum-mechanical version of the ancient Liar Paradox can be realized with already existing transmission schemes, with the addition of Bell's theorem applied to the no-exchange cases. Under appropriate probabilities, the initially-excited atom, still excited, can be entangled with additional atoms time and again, or alternatively, exert multipartite nonlocal correlations in an interaction free manner. When densely repeated several times, this result also gives rise to the Quantum Zeno effect, again exerted between distant atoms without photon exchange. We discuss these experiments as variants of Interaction-Free-Measurement, now generalized for both spatial and temporal uncertainties. We next employ weak measurements for elucidating the paradox. Interpretational issues are discussed in the conclusion, and a resolution is offered within the Two-State Vector Formalism and its new Heisenberg framework.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.07169

zbMATH Keywords

entanglementnonlocalityquantum Zeno effectweak measurementsinteraction free measurement

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Quantum optics (81V80) General and philosophical questions in quantum theory (81P05) Quantum measurement theory, state operations, state preparations (81P15) Quantum coherence, entanglement, quantum correlations (81P40) Atomic physics (81V45)

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Cited In (2)

• On interchangeability of probe-object roles in quantum-quantum interaction-free measurement
• What weak measurements and weak values really mean: reply to Kastner

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