Erasing the which-path information of photons

Abstract

Which-path information of a quantum particle in interferometers is the key to infer the past of quantum particle. It arises many extensive discussions including quantum complementarity and path-visibility relation. The basic of these discussions are the description, detection and control of which-path information. In this article, we focus on the investigation of multidimensional which-path information in nested Mach-Zehnder interferometer. A general expression of which-path information is given and can be partially extracted by different detection method. Further analysis shows that the which-path information can be controlled by the phase differences and beam splitting ratios between the arms of nested Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Moreover, a new which-path information elimination phenomenon has been predicted and demonstrated experimentally. Our work can help to understand the physics of quantum particles, potentially apply to quantum information process and quantum metrology.

arXiv comment7 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

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