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JOURNALS // Pis'ma v Zhurnal Èksperimental'noi i Teoreticheskoi Fiziki // Archive

Pis'ma v Zh. Èksper. Teoret. Fiz., 2017 Volume 105, Issue 3, Pages 136–141 (Mi jetpl5178)

This article is cited in 18 papers

OPTICS AND NUCLEAR PHYSICS

Paradox of photons disconnected trajectories being located by means of “weak measurements” in the nested Mach–Zehnder interferometer

G. N. Nikolaevab

a Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Russia
b Institute of Automation and Electrometry, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia

Abstract: Recently, a scheme based on the method of weak measurements to register the trajectories of photons passing through a nested Mach-Zehnder interferometer was proposed [L. Vaidman, Phys. Rev. A 87, 052104 (2013)] and then realized [A. Danan, D. Farfurnik, S. Bar-Ad, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 240402 (2013)]. Interpreting the results of the experiment, the authors concluded that “the photons do not always follow continuous trajectories”. It is shown in this work that these results can be easily and clearly explained in terms of traditional classical electrodynamics or quantum mechanics implying the continuity of all possible paths of photons. Consequently, a new concept of disconnected trajectories proposed by the authors of work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 240402 (2013)] is unnecessary.

Received: 12.12.2016

DOI: 10.7868/S0370274X1703002X


 English version:
Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics Letters, 2017, 105:3, 152–157

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