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The interference between two paths of a single photon at a double slit is widely considered to be the most paradoxical result of quantum theory. Here is a new interesting question to the phenomenon: can a single shutter simultaneously close two slits by effectively being in a superposition of different locations? Supprisingly, Aharonov and Vaidman have shown that it is indeed possible to construct a quantum shutter that can close two (or more) slits and reflect a probe photon perfectly when its initial and final states are appropriately selected [1]. Here, we demonstrate the protocol proposed by Aharonov and Vaidman using a photonic quantum circuit [2]. As a quantum shutter, we used a shutter photon in a superposition state in modes that control two photonic quantum routers for the nonlinear interaction with a probe photon. The experimental results show that when the shutter photon is found in the appropriate final state, the input probe photon is reflected by the quantum shutter, with a probability exceeding the classical limit. By checking the coherence of the output probe photon, we also verified that the quantum superposition of the probe photon is not destroyed by the shutter.
[1] Aharonov, Y., & Vaidman, L. How one shutter can close N slits. Physical Review A, 67, 1-3 (2003).
[2] Okamoto, R., & Takeuchi, S. Experimental demonstration of a quantum shutter closing two slits simultaneously. Scientific Reports, 6, 35161 (2016).
| Topic: | Mini-workshop: Quantum Foundations and Quantum Information |
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