Search

A century after its conception, quantum mechanics still hold surprises that contradict many "common sense" notions. The contradiction is especially sharp in case one consider trajectories of truly quantum objects such as single photons. From a classical point of view, trajectories are well defined for particles, but not for waves. The wave-particle duality forces a breakdown of this dichotomy and quantum mechanics resolves this in a remarkable way: Trajectories can be well defined, but they are utterly different from classical trajectories. Here, we give an operational definition to the trajectory of a single photon by introducing a technique to mark its path using its spectral composition. The method demonstrates that the frequency degree of freedom can be used as a bona fide quantum measurement device (meter). The analysis of a number of setups, using our operational definition, leads to anomalous trajectories which are noncontinuous and in some cases do not even connect the source of the photon to where it is detected. We carried out an experimental demonstration of these anomalous trajectories using a nested interferometer. We show that the two-state vector formalism provides a simple explanation for the results., QC 20170522

We propose a linear compression technique for the time interval distribution of photon pairs. Using a partially frequency-entangled two-photon (TP) state with appropriate mean time width, the compressed TP time interval width can be kept in the minimum limit set by the phase modulation, and is independent of its initial width. As a result of this effect, ultra-narrow TP time interval distribution can be compressed with relatively slow phase modulators to decrease the damage of the phase-instability arising from the phase modulation process., Comment: 4 pages, 8 figures

We have experimentally demonstrated a decoy-state quantum key distribution scheme (QKD) with a heralded single-photon source based on parametric down-conversion. What we used is a one-way BB84 protocol with a four-state and one-detector phase-coding scheme.