Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment: A proposal for the Bragg-regime cavity-QED implementation

作者:Ikram Manzoor; Imran Muhammad; Abbas Tasawar*; Rameez ul Islam
来源:Physical Review A, 2015, 91(4): 043636.
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevA.91.043636

摘要

Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment highlights strange features of quantum theory such as pre-sensing of the experimental setup by the quantum object and the role of time. A recent proposal for such an experiment with an interferometer having a quantum beam splitter (QBS) [R. Ionicioiu and D. R. Terno, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 230406 (2011)] and its subsequent experimental implementations through photonics and NMR have produced results including the modification in the concept of complementarity. Here we propose a matter-wave Mach-Zehnder-Bragg cavity-QED interferometric setup with final QBS engineered through a cavity field that is taken initially in the superposition of zero and one photon. The setup operates through first-order off-resonant Bragg diffraction of the neutral atoms from the cavity fields with the matter wave's particle (wave) nature marked through the absence (presence) of a photon in the final cavity. The proposal, addressing the issue through atomic de Broglie waves, can be executed within the present cavity-QED experimental scenario with appreciable success probability and fidelity.

  • 出版日期2015-4-30