WEAK MEASUREMENT

Weak values by sequential measurement

Presented by:Sushovan

Supervisor:Dr. Asoka

Mondal(BS-MS Dual Degree,IISER

KOLKATA)

Biswas(Dept. of Physics,IIT
ROPAR)

July 2015

INTRODUCTION
In quantum information, measurement is a very
important factor.In general measurement means to
jump a quantum state into an eigenstate of dynamical
variable that is being measured.In weak measurement
the system will not collapse in one eigenstate but the
entanglement between system and the device become
as weak that we can extract the information without
changing of the initial state.It is the main funda of weak
measurement. Well show how does the probability of
number dstribution changes for changing the
weakness of the measurement.

Strong Measurement
In general quantum measurement indicates the strong
measurement. That means when I measure any
quantum state with a device that will collapse the
state, in any of the eigenstate of the observable. Now
say any state can be denoted as | ,which can be
written as | c j | a j .Now if we measure this state
j
by strong measurement then the state will be collapse
in any one of the eigenstate according to probability
distribution. As the state is now transformed another
state | a j ,So we lost the information related to it. We
can say that this type of measurement is due to
system and device strong entanglement.

Properties of strong measurement

We consider the state as quantum and device as
classical state.
The entanglement between system and device will
be strong.
The initial quantum state collapse in an eigenstate
according to the observable.
As the initial quantum state collapse in other state,
so the information related to the initial state will be
|
lost.
| a j of a state
Example: To measure the position
,the
state should be collapsed | ,So the information
related to the momentum of
will be lost.

Concept of weak measurement

1. Both system and device are considered as
quantum state.
2. They entangled weakly.
3. Measured the devices quantum state strongly , i.e
collapse it one eigenstate.
4. Average it over an ensemble of these same
measurements.
5. The outcome is the weak value of the observable.

Post selection
1. 1st there is an initial state | in of the state and
weakly entangled with devices state | .
2. Then the interaction operator of observable will be
operated.
3. Then select the desirable states| fin and discard
other states, this process is called post selection.
4. Repeat the process several times and take
f | A | i
average.
Aw
5. The weak value is given by
f | i
,where A is the operator of observable .

Nature of weak values

| A | i

Aw
So weak value is given by
f | i .
| f may be
Depending on post selection
|
orthogonal
to
.
i
As the numerator tends to a small value, so that the
weak value tends to a higher value .
As we increase the weakness of the measurement
the variance of the observable will increase.
But the information related to initial state remain
approximately intact.

Graphical representation of weak

values
ipt ( a b ab )

Plots
of
number
distribution for various
weakness

1. Consider e
as operator(beam
splitter operator).
2. Change the weakness
of measurement and
plot photon number
distribution.
3. Peak shifts to higher n
and variance
increases with
increase of weakness.

Conclusion
Here we observe how the weak value of a observable
differs from the value of the projective measurement.
So, as we show here the distribution for the photon
number we can also choose other basis to show this
weak values. And as the weak value is obtained by
weak interaction, so it is the more precise
measurement process in quantum mechanics.

THANK YOU