Weak measurements and quantum-to-classical transitions in free electron–photon interactions

Yiming Pan; Eliahu Cohen; Ebrahim Karimi; Avraham Gover; Norbert Schönenberger; Tomáš Chlouba; Kangpeng Wang; Saar Nehemia; Peter Hommelhoff; Ido Kaminer; Yakir Aharonov

doi:10.1038/s41377-023-01292-2

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Weak measurements and quantum-to-classical transitions in free electron–photon interactions

Original Articles

- Weak measurements and quantum-to-classical transitions in free electron–photon interactions
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 12, Issue 11, Pages: 2519-2529(2023)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.School of Physical Science and Technology and Center for Transformative Science, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 200031, China
  2.Department of Electrical Engineering, Technion, Haifa 3200003, Israel
  3.Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel
  4.Faculty of Engineering and the Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002, Israel
  5.Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5, Canada
  6.Department of Electrical Engineering Physical Electronics, Center for Laser–Matter Interaction (LMI), Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 6997801, Israel
  7.Department of Physics, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Staudtstraße 1, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
  8.School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 6997801, Israel
  9.Institute for Quantum Studies, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866, USA
- Author bio：
  
  Yiming Pan (yiming.pan@shanghaitech.edu.cn)
  Eliahu Cohen (eliahu.cohen@biu.ac.il)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-023-01292-2
  CLC：
- Published：30 November 2023，
  
  Published Online：08 November 2023，
  
  Received：10 September 2023，
  
  Accepted：20 September 2023
- Accepted：
Scan QR Code
Pan, Y. M. et al. Weak measurements and quantum-to-classical transitions in free electron–photon interactions. Light: Science & Applications, 12, 2519-2529 (2023).
DOI：

Pan, Y. M. et al. Weak measurements and quantum-to-classical transitions in free electron–photon interactions. Light: Science & Applications, 12, 2519-2529 (2023). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-023-01292-2.

摘要

Abstract

How does the quantum-to-classical transition of measurement occur? This question is vital for both foundations and applications of quantum mechanics. Here

we develop a new measurement-based framework for characterizing the classical and quantum free electron–photon interactions and then experimentally test it. We first analyze the transition from projective to weak measurement in generic light–matter interactions and show that any classical electron-laser-beam interaction can be represented as an outcome of weak measurement. In particular

the appearance of classical point-particle acceleration is an example of an amplified weak value resulting from weak measurement. A universal factor

$$ \exp \left(-{\Gamma }^{2}/2\right) $$

quantifies the measurement regimes and their transition from quantum to classical

where

$$ \Gamma $$

corresponds to the ratio between the electron wavepacke

t size and the optical wavelength. This measurement-based formulation is experimentally verified in both limits of photon-induced near-field electron microscopy and the classical acceleration regime using a DLA. Our results shed new light on the transition from quantum to classical electrodynamics

enabling us to employ the essence of the wave-particle duality of both light and electrons in quantum measurement for exploring and applying many quantum and classical light–matter interactions.

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references

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