6 research outputs found
Quantum mechanical effect of path-polarization contextuality for a single photon
Using measurements pertaining to a suitable Mach-Zehnder(MZ) type setup, a
curious quantum mechanical effect of contextuality between the path and the
polarization degrees of freedom of a polarized photon is demonstrated, without
using any notion of realism or hidden variables - an effect that holds good for
the product as well as the entangled states. This form of experimental
context-dependence is manifested in a way such that at \emph{either} of the two
exit channels of the MZ setup used, the empirically verifiable
\emph{subensemble} statistical properties obtained by an arbitrary polarization
measurement depend upon the choice of a commuting(comeasurable) path
observable, while this effect disappears for the \emph{whole ensemble} of
photons emerging from the two exit channels of the MZ setup.Comment: To be published in IJT