Experimental test of the relation between coherence and path information

Journal article

Quantum coherence stemming from the superposition behaviour of a particle beyond the classical realm, serves as one of the most fundamental features in quantum mechanics. The wave-particle duality phenomenon, which shares the same origin, has a strong relationship with quantum coherence. Recently, an elegant relation between quantum coherence and path information has been theoretically derived. Here, we experimentally test such new duality by l1-norm measure and the minimum-error state discrimination. We prepare three classes of two-photon states encoded in polarisation degree of freedom, with one photon serving as the target and the other photon as the detector. We observe that wave-particle-like complementarity and Bagan’s equality, defined by the duality relation between coherence and path information, is well satisfied. Our results may shed new light on the original nature of wave-particle duality and on the applications of quantum coherence as a fundamental resource in quantum technologies.

Authors: Gao, J; Jiao, Z; Hu, C; Qiao, L; Ren, R

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Springer Nature
• Journal: Communications Physics
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 1
• Article number: 89
• Publication date: 2018-11-29
• Acceptance date: 2018-11-07
• DOI: 10.1038/s42005-018-0090-8
• EISSN: 2399-3650
• Keywords: FFR