Time correlators from deferred measurements

Abstract

Repeated measurements as typically occurring in two- or multi-time correlators rely on von Neumann's projection postulate, telling how to restart the system after an intermediate measurement. We invoke the principle of deferred measurement to describe an alternative procedure where co-evolving quantum memories extract system information through entanglement, combined with a final readout of the memories described by Born's rule. The new approach to repeated quantum measurements respects the unitary evolution of quantum mechanics during intermediate times, unifies the treatment of strong and weak measurements, and reproduces the projected and (anti-) symmetrized correlators in the two limits. As an illustration, we apply our formalism to the calculation of the electron charge correlator in a mesoscopic physics setting, where single electron pulses assume the role of flying memory qubits. We propose an experimental setup which reduces the measurement of the time correlator to the measurement of currents and noise, exploiting the (pulsed) injection of electrons to cope with the challenge of performing short-time measurements.

13 pages, 4 figures

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• On uniqueness of quantum measurement theory