Quantum which-way information and fringe visibility when the detector is entangled with an ancilla

Abstract

Quantum mechanical wave-particle duality is quantified in terms of a trade-off relation between the fringe visibility and the which-way distinguishability in an interference experiment. This relation is recently generalized by Banaszek et. al., (Nature Communications 4, 2594, 2013) when the particle is equipped with an internal degree of freedom such as spin. Here, we extend the visibility-distinguishability trade-off relation to quantum interference of a particle possessing an internal degree of freedom, when the which-way detector state is entangled with an ancillary system. We introduce an extended which-way distinguishability and the associated extended fringe visibility satisfying the duality inequality in this scenario. We illustrate, with the help of three specific examples, that while the which-way information inferred solely from the detector state (without ancilla) vanishes, the extended distinguishability retrievable via measurements on the detector-ancilla entangled state is non-zero. Furthermore, in all the three examples, the extended visibility and the generalized visibility (which was introduced by Banaszek et. al., Nature Communications 4, 2594, 2013)) match identically with each other.