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Quantum counterfactual communication without a weak trace

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Arvidsson Shukur, DRM 
Barnes, CHW 

Abstract

The classical theories of communication rely on the assumption that there has to be a flow of particles from Bob to Alice in order for him to send a message to her. We develop a quantum protocol that allows Alice to perceive Bob's message "counterfactually"; that is, without Alice receiving any particles that have interacted with Bob. By utilizing a setup built on results from interaction-free measurements, we outline a communication protocol whereby the information travels in the opposite direction of the emitted particles. In comparison to previous attempts on such protocols, this one is such that a weak measurement at the message source would not leave a weak trace that could be detected by Alice's receiver. While some interaction-free schemes require a large number of carefully aligned beam splitters, our protocol is realizable with two or more beam splitters. We demonstrate this protocol by numerically solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for a Hamiltonian that implements this quantum counterfactual phenomenon.

Description

Keywords

5108 Quantum Physics, 51 Physical Sciences

Journal Title

Physical Review A

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2469-9926
2469-9934

Volume Title

94

Publisher

American Physical Society
Sponsorship
This work was supported by an EPSRC DTA grant and the Cambridge Laboratory of Hitachi Limited via Project for Developing Innovation Systems of the MEXT in Japan.