Do weak values capture the complete truth about the past of a quantum particle?

DOI10.1016/J.PHYSLETA.2022.127955zbMATH Open1485.81009arXiv1807.05341OpenAlexW2884243707MaRDI QIDQ2074537FDOQ2074537

Authors: Rajendra Singh Bhati, Arvind 

Publication date: 10 February 2022

Published in: Physics Letters. A (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Weak values inferred from weak measurements have been proposed as a tool to investigate trajectories of pre- and post-selected quantum systems. Are the inferences drawn from the weak values about the past of a quantum particle fully true? Can the two-state vector formalism predict everything that the standard formalism of quantum mechanics can? To investigate these questions we present a "which-path" gedanken experiment in which the information revealed by a pre- and post-selected quantum system is surprisingly different from what one would expect from the weak values computed using the two-state vector formalism. In our gedanken experiment, a particle reveals its presence in locations where the weak value of the projection operator onto those locations was vanishingly small. Therefore our predictions turn out to be in contradistinction to those made based on the nonvanishing weak values as the presence indicators of the quantum particle. We propose a six port photon-based interferometer setup as a possible physical realization of our gedanken experiment.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.05341

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zbMATH Keywords

weak valuesweak measurementsABL retrodiction ruleweak value paradoxes

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Vector-valued measures and integration (46G10) Quantum measurement theory, state operations, state preparations (81P15)

Cites Work

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Cited In (8)

• Can a future choice affect a past measurement's outcome?
• Where is a photon in an interferometer?
• Weak value and the wave-particle duality
• Weak measurements of trajectories in quantum systems: classical, Bohmian and sum over paths
• Can a dove prism change the past of a single photon?
• Quantum non-barking dogs
• Asking photons where they have been in plain language
• Past of a particle in an entangled state

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