Experimental Realization of Sequential Weak Measurements of Arbitrary Non-commuting Pauli Observables

Abstract

Sequential weak measurements of non-commuting observables is not only fundamentally interesting in quantum measurement but also shown potential in various applications. The previous reported methods, however, can only realize limited sequential weak measurements experimentally. In this Letter, we propose the realization of sequential measurements of arbitrary observables and experimentally demonstrate for the first time the measurement of sequential weak values of three non-commuting Pauli observables by using genuine single photons. The results presented here will not only improve our understanding of quantum measurement, e.g. testing quantum contextuality, macroscopic realism, and uncertainty relation, but also have many applications such as realizing counterfactual computation, direct process tomography, direct measurement of the density matrix and unbounded randomness certification.