Coherence-path duality relations for N paths

ORAL

Abstract

For an interferometer with two paths, there is a relation between the information about which path the particle took and the visibility of the interference pattern at the output. The more path information we have, the smaller the visibility, and vice versa. We generalize this relation to a multi-path interferometer, and we substitute two recently defined measures of quantum coherence for the visibility, which results in two duality relations. The path information is provided by attaching a detector to each path. In the first relation, which uses an $l_1$ measure of coherence, the path information is obtained by applying the minimum-error state discrimination procedure to the detector states. In the second, which employs an entropic measure of coherence, the path information is the mutual information between the detector states and the result of measuring them. Both approaches are quantitative versions of complementarity for $N$-path interferometers.

Authors

  • Mark Hillery

    Hunter College of CUNY

  • Emilio Bagan

    Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

  • Janos Bergou

    Hunter College of CUNY

  • Seth Cottrell

    New York City College of Technology