Classical Analogue of Weak Value in Stochastic Process

Abstract

One of the remarkable notions in the recent development of quantum physics is the weak value related to weak measurements. We emulate it as a two-time conditional expectation in a classical stochastic model. We use the well known symmetrized form of the master equation, which is formally equivalent to the wave equation in quantum mechanics apart from the fact that wave functions are always real. The origin of the unusual behaviors of the weak value such as the negative probability and the abnormal enhancement of some expectations becomes clearer in the present case, where the two-time conditional probability has no ambiguity of imaginary/complex values.