Knowing "where the photons have been"

Abstract

Linear-optical interferometers play a key role in designing circuits for quantum information processing and quantum communications. Even though nested Mach-Zehnder interferometers appear easy to describe, there are occasions when they provide unintuitive results. This paper explains the results of a highly discussed experiment performed by Danan et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 240402 (2013)] using a standard approach. We provide a simple and intuitive one-state vector formalism capable of interpreting their experiment. Additionally, we cross-checked our model with a classical-physics based approach and found that both models are in complete agreement. We argue that the quantity used in the mentioned experiment is not a suitable which-path witness producing seemingly contra-intuitive results. To circumvent this issue, we establish a more reliable which-path witness and show that it yields well expected outcomes of the experiment.