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Wigner-friend scenarios with noninvasive weak measurements

A. Matzkin and D. Sokolovski
Phys. Rev. A 102, 062204 – Published 4 December 2020

Abstract

Wigner-friend scenarios—in which an external agent describes quantum mechanically a laboratory in which a friend is making a measurement—give rise to possible inconsistencies due to the ambiguous character of quantum measurements. In this paper, we investigate Wigner-friend scenarios in which the external agents can probe in a noninvasive manner the dynamics inside the laboratories. We examine probes that can be very weakly coupled to the systems measured by the friends, or to the pointers or environments inside the laboratories. These couplings, known as weak measurements, are asymptotically small and do not change the outcomes obtained by the friends or their probabilities. Within our scheme, we show that the weakly coupled probes indicate to the external agents how to obtain consistent predictions, irrespective of the possible inconsistencies of quantum measurement theory. These noninvasive couplings could be implemented with present-day technologies.

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  • Received 28 August 2020
  • Accepted 16 November 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.102.062204

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

©2020 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Quantum Information, Science & TechnologyAtomic, Molecular & OpticalInterdisciplinary PhysicsGeneral Physics

Authors & Affiliations

A. Matzkin

  • Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Modélisation, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unité 8089, CY Cergy Paris Université, 95302 Cergy-Pontoise, France

D. Sokolovski

  • Departmento de Química-Física, Universidad del País Vasco, UPV/EHU, Leioa, Spain and IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, E-48011 Bilbao, Spain

Article Text

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Issue

Vol. 102, Iss. 6 — December 2020

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