Quantum Zeno and Anti-Zeno Probes of Noise Correlations in Photon Polarization

Year: 2022

Authors: Virzi S.; Avella A.; Piacentini F.; Gramegna M.; Opatrny T.; Kofman A.G.; Kurizki G.; Gherardini S.; Caruso F.; Degiovanni I.P.; Genovese M.

Autors Affiliation: Department of Optics, Faculty of Science, Palacke University, Olomouc, 77146, Czech Republic; Department of Chemical and Biological Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel; Department of Physics and Astronomy, European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS), University of Florence, via G. Sansone 1, Sesto Fiorentino, 50019, Italy and Istituto Nazionale di Ottica (CNR-INO), Area Science Park, Basovizza, I-34149 Trieste, Italy; Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica, Strada delle Cacce 91, Torino, 10135, Italy

Abstract: We experimentally demonstrate, for the first time, noise diagnostics by repeated quantum measurements, establishing the ability of a single photon subjected to random polarization noise to diagnose non-Markovian temporal correlations of such a noise process. Both the noise spectrum and temporal correlations are diagnosed by probing the photon with frequent (partially) selective polarization measurements. We show that noise with positive temporal correlations corresponds to our single photon undergoing a dynamical regime enabled by the quantum Zeno effect (QZE), whereas noise characterized by negative (anti) correlations corresponds to regimes associated with the anti-Zeno effect (AZE). This is the first step toward a novel noise spectroscopy based on QZE and AZE in single-photon state probing able to extract information on the noise while protecting the probe state, a conceptual paradigm shift with respect to traditional interferometric measurements.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

Volume: 129 (3)      Pages from: 030401-1  to: 030401-7

More Information: The authors thank Lajos Diosi for fruitful discussions. This work was financially supported from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme underFET-OPENGrant Agreement No. 828946 (PATHOS). G. K. acknowledges also the support of ISF, BSF-NSF, DFG, and PACE-IN (QuantERA). T. O. acknowledges the support of the Czech Science Foundation, Grant No. 20-27994S. This work was also funded by the project QuaFuPhy (call “Trapezio” of Fondazione San Paolo) and by the projects EMPIR 19NRM06 METISQ and 20IND05 QADeT. These projects received funding from the EMPIR program cofinanced by the Participating States and from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.
KeyWords: circular-dichroism spectroscopy; nonconserving optical-rotation; paradox; faraday; decay
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.030401