Fidelity and Coherence Measures from Interference

Abstract

By utilizing single particle interferometry, the fidelity or coherence of a pair of quantum states is identified with their capacity for interference. We consider processes acting on the internal degree of freedom (e.g., spin or polarization) of the interfering particle, preparing it in states ρ_{A} or ρ_{B} in the respective path of the interferometer. The maximal visibility depends on the choice of interferometer, as well as the locality or non-locality of the preparations, but otherwise depends only on the states ρ_{A} and ρ_{B} and not the individual preparation processes themselves. This allows us to define interferometric measures which probe locality and correlation properties of spatially or temporally separated processes, and can be used to differentiate between processes that cannot be distinguished by direct process tomography using only the internal state of the particle.