How a single particle modifies the physical reality of two distant others simultaneously: a quantum nonlocality and weak value study

Abstract

The concept of wave-particle duality, which is a key element of quantum theory, has been remarkably found to manifest itself in several experimental realizations as in the famous double-slit experiment. In this specific case, a single particle seems to travel through two separated slits simultaneously. Nevertheless, it is never possible to measure it in both slits, which naturally appears as a manifestation of the collapse postulate. In this respect, one could as well ask if it is possible to "perceive" the presence of the particle at the two slits simultaneously, once its collapse could be avoided. In this article, we use the recently proposed entanglement mediation protocol to provide a positive answer to this question. It is shown that a photon which behaves like a wave, i.e., which seems to be present in two distant locations at the same time, can modify two existing physical realities in these locations. Calculations of the "weak trace" left by such photon also enforce the validity of the present argumentation.

7 pages, 1 figure

References in corpus (5)

• Experimental joint weak measurement on a photon pair as a probe of Hardy's Paradox
• Direct observation of Hardy's paradox by joint weak measurement with an entangled photon pair
• An atomic Hong-Ou-Mandel experiment
• Testing foundations of quantum mechanics with photons
• Extracting joint weak values from two-dimensional spatial displacements