Phys. Rev. A 66, 062107 (2002) [12 pages]

Quantitative conditional quantum erasure in two-atom resonance fluorescence

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Matthias Jakob1,2 and János Bergou1,3
1Department of Physics, Hunter College, City University of New York, 695 Park Avenue, New York 10021
2Department of Physics, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), SCFAB, Roslagstullsbacken 21, S-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
3Institute of Physics, Janus Pannonius University, H-7624 Pécs, Ifjúság útja 6, Hungary

Received 28 June 2002; published 12 December 2002

We present a conditional quantum eraser that erases the a priori knowledge or the predictability of the path a photon takes in a Young-type double-slit experiment with two fluorescent four-level atoms. This erasure violates a recently derived erasure relation which must be satisfied for a conventional, unconditional quantum eraser that aims to find an optimal sorting of the system into subensembles with particularly large fringe visibilities. The conditional quantum eraser employs an interaction-free, partial which-way measurement which not only sorts the system into optimal subsystems with large visibility, but also selects the appropriate subsystem with the maximum possible visibility. We explain how the erasure relation can be violated under these circumstances.


©2002 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.66.062107
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.66.062107
PACS: 03.65.Ta, 03.65.Ud, 03.67.-a

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