Realism-information complementarity in photonic weak measurements

Abstract

The emergence of realistic properties is a key problem in understanding the quantum-to-classical transition. In this respect, measurements represent a way to interface quantum systems with the macroscopic world: these can be driven in the weak regime, where a reduced back-action can be imparted by choosing meter states able to extract different amounts of information. Here we explore the implications of such weak measurement for the variation of realistic properties of two-level quantum systems pre- and post-measurement, and extend our investigations to the case of open systems implementing the measurements.