Interaction-free measurement and forward scattering

Abstract

Interaction-free measurement is shown to arise from the forward-scattered wave accompanying absorption: a "quantum silhouette" of the absorber. Accordingly, the process is not free of interaction. For a perfect absorber the forward-scattered wave is locked both in amplitude and in phase. For an imperfect one it has a nontrivial phase of dynamical origin (``colored silhouette"), measurable by interferometry. Other examples of quantum silhouettes, all controlled by unitarity, are briefly discussed.

4 pages in RevTex + 1 figure in eps; submitted to Phys. Rev. A since 09Jan98; now updated

References in corpus (4)

• Quantum Mechanical Interaction-Free Measurements
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• Conditions for Nondistortion Interrogation of Quantum System
• Universal Quantum Computation with Shutter Logic