Physical Society Colloquium

Quantum Measurement in the Real World

Aephraim Steinberg

Department of Physics
University of Toronto

While quantum measurement remains the central philosophical conundrum of quantum mechanics, it has recently grown into a respectable (read: experimental!) discipline as well. New perspectives on measurement have grown out of new technological possibilities, but also out of attempts to design systems for quantum information processing. I will present several examples of how our current ideas on quantum measurement go far beyond the usual textbook treatments, using examples from our entangled-photon and ultracold-atoms laboratories in Toronto. Topics will be drawn from weak measurement, “interaction-free” measurement, Hardy's Paradox, measurement-induced quantum logic, and techniques for controlling and characterizing the coherence of quantum systems. The moral of the story will be that there are many different kinds of measurement strategies, with their own advantages and disadvantages; and that some things we have been taught not to even think about can actually be measured in a certain sense.