2 QUANTUM MEASUREMENT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES What is measurement in classical physics? In the classical realm of human-scale objects such as motorcy- cles and buildings, it’s pretty clear what we mean by ‘measur- ing an object.’ If you wish to know the length of a wall in your bedroom, you use a ruler or measuring tape to measure it. Or, if you wish to determine the speed of a motorcycle passing by, you could mark off a 30-foot (or 10-meter) section of the street and use a stopwatch to measure the time it takes to travel the distance between marks. The speed is the distance divided by the elapsed time. ‘There are three aspects of the classical concept of measure- ment. First, it is presumed we can increase the precision of such measurements without limit if we have the needed instrument for our use. Second, it’s clear that making such measurements can be done in a way that does not significantly change the objects being measured. Third, it seems obvious that the length of the wall and the speed of the motorcycle actually have val- ues when they are measured and before you measure them. That is, we presume objects inherently possess definite values for the features to be measured before actually carrying out the measurement. Tt turns out that at the atomic scale, for quantum objects such as electrons, these aspects of measurement do not hold up as they do in the ‘classical’ world. It is not obvious thatChapter 2 Quantum Measurement and Its Consequences 23 measurements on such an object can be done without changing the object significantly. It’s not even obvious that the feature or property of the object you wish to measure in the quantum world actually has a definite value before you measure it. Before trying to explain how these radical-sounding ideas could really be the way the subatomic world is, let’s take a tour through the world of polarized light. This provides a nice illustration of the way ‘measurement’ works in the quantum realm. Along the way, we will see where the concept of ‘quan- tum/ enters. What is light polarization? Every beam of light has a feature called polarization, and it can be put to good use. Polarized sunglasses reduce the glare you would see from the surface of a lake or the hood of a car. The three-dimensional glasses you wear at movie theaters make use of light polarization. And the LCD screen of your computer or smartphone works by using polarized light. To confirm this, try rotating a pair of polarized glasses in front of such a screen. To understand how polarization works, imagine an arrow flying through the air. This arrow has a pair of feathers at its tail. Let's consider that the orientation of the feathers stays constant as the arrow flies. The orientation of the feathers can be thought of as a feature, or property, of the arrow; we can talk about a vertically feathered arrow or a horizontally feath- ered arrow, or some case in between. The polarization of a light beam traveling parallel to the ground is analogous to the arrow’s feather orientation. It can be oriented either vertically or horizontally, or in between. What is light polarization? I mentioned in Chapter 1 that an electric field is an influence that establishes a force between electrically charged objects that are not in direct physical contact. According to classical physics theory, light is made up of traveling, oscillating electric and magnetic fields. The24 QUANTUM PHYSICS polarization of light corresponds to the orientation in which the electric field is oscillating as the light travels. The direction of the polarization is perpendicular to the direction the light is traveling, just as feathers are perpendicular to the direction an arrow is traveling. The direction of the polarization can be thought of as a feature, or property, of the light; we can talk about a vertically polarized light beam or a horizontally polar- ized light beam, or a polarization somewhere in between. How do we determine or measure light polarization? Consider the arrow again. For simplicity, let’s consider only those cases in which the orientation of the feathers is either vertical or horizontal. What if the arrow is flying through a dark room so you can’t see the feathers? How can you deter- mine its feather orientation? You could put it through some kind of test and see what happens. Imagine that the head of the arrow passes through a slot between closely spaced hori- zontal slats in a fence, as in FIGURE 2.1. If it is a horizontally feathered arrow, it passes through the slot unimpeded. But, if the feathers are vertical and stiff, the arrow is not able to pass through the slot. Figure 2.1. Measuring the orientation ofthe feathers on an arrow, The slots accept horizontally oriented arrows and a target registers their arrival If you know beforehand that the arrow’s feathers are either vertical or horizontal, you can use this arrangementChapter 2 Quantum Measurement and Its Consequences 25 to determine their orientation. Let the arrow attempt to pass through a slot in the horizontally slotted fence. If you can somehow ascertain that it passed through, you will know without actually seeing it that it was a horizontally feathered arrow. If you ascertain that it doesn’t pass through, you know it isa vertically feathered arrow. To ascertain whether the arrow passes through, you could place a target behind the fence and, with your hand touch- ing the edge of the target, you could feel the arrow’s impact if it strikes the target. The target acts to record or ‘register’ the arrival of the arrow. In physics we would call the fence slot a selector and the target a detector. Both are needed to accom- plish a meaningful measurement. If a stream of arrows, some with vertical and some with horizontal feather orientations, are aimed toward the slot in the fence, some pass through and some are blocked. ‘This amounts to a classical physics determination or measurement of the feather orientation of each arrow. We can characterize the arrow stream by noting the percentage of arrows measured to be vertical, with the rest being horizontal. For example, we might find a particular stream of arrows was thirty-five per- cent vertical and sixty-five percent horizontal. For measuring the polarization of light, we can use a glass window made of a special material through which light of a particular polarization can pass, but the perpendicular polar- ization is blocked. A piece of such material is called a polarizer. If vertically polarized light is incident on such a polarizer that is oriented in a certain way, the light is blocked completely. If that same polarizer is then rotated go degrees, then vertically polarized light passes perfectly and horizontally polarized light is blocked. If your eyeglasses are made of that material, then sunlight that has bounced off your car hood before reach- ing your glasses is mostly blocked, because that reflected light is mostly polarized horizontally. We can imagine the action of the polarizer to be analogous to the way the slotted fence acts on the arrows, as illustrated26 QUANTUM PHYSICS in FIGURE 2.2. In this drawing, the short lines show the direc- tion and strength of the electric field at each point where the light is traveling. If the light’s polarization is parallel to the polarizer’s ‘slots,’ then the light passes through undimmed; but, if the light is polarized perpendicular to the polarizer’s slots, the light is blocked. If a detector that can register arriv- ing light is placed behind the polarizer, then we have a setup that measures the light’s polarization, H (for horizontal) or V (for vertical). V-pol i Figure 22 Measuring the polarization of light with a polarizer and alight detector. Only horizontally polarized (H-pol light passes through the polarizer and is registered at the detector Vertically polarized (V-pol ight is blocked. To shorten our terminology, let’s abbreviate the phrase ver- tical polarization to V-pol and horizontal polarization to H-pol. We can refer to light being either V-pol or H-pol, or something in between. What if the light beam contains some combination of V-pol and H-pol light? How do we characterize its polarization? As with the arrow stream, we can do this by determining the frac- tion of the light beam that is V-polarized or H-polarized. To make this characterization possible, we use a special kind of polarizer that passes H-pol light and, instead of simply block- ing V-pol light, deflects it into a different beam. A crystal made of calcite does the trick nicely. Calcite is a common transparentChapter 2 Quantum Measurement and Its Consequences 27 mineral, samples of which can be bought in rock collector shops. It causes double refraction—meaning light beams of different polarizations are bent or refracted differently when entering the crystal. This effect of light passing through a calcite crystal is illus- trated in FIGURE 2.3, which shows the calcite crystal in an ori- entation we call the horizontal/ vertical or (H/V) orientation. The arrow drawn on the crystal indicates in which direction the light with polarization parallel to the arrow gets deflected. We call this arrow the axis of the crystal. Light with polariza- tion perpendicular to the crystal axis is not deflected. unknown polarization Figure 2.3 Characterizing the polarization of light with 2 suitably oriented calcite crystal and two light cletectors We place two light detectors behind the crystal, one in each emerging beam. A certain amount of light power is deflected toward one or the other detector, which registers a voltage depending on how much light energy strikes it. If the incom- ing light is purely H-pol, only the lower detector registers light striking it. If the incoming light is purely V-pol, only the upper detector registers light striking it. What happens if the light contains a mixture of polarizations? Direct sunlight, for example, contains all polarizations—H, V, and all orientations in between—in equal amounts. We call this an equal mixture of all polarizations. In such a case, when we characterize the light as in FIGURE 2.3, we would find equal amounts of light registered at the two detectors. In fact, if we28 QUANTUM PHYSICS were to rotate the calcite crystal and the detectors together to any orientation, we would still register equal amounts of light hitting the two detectors. That is, the polarization of sunlight has no preferred orientation. In the general case, a mixture can occur with various pro- portions of different polarizations. To characterize this light, we can register the fraction of all the light detected as V-pol, and the fraction detected as H-pol. This measurement gives us important information, but it is not the whole story, as illus- trated by the next question. What happens if the light is purely polarized other than H or V? Light can be purely polarized and oriented at any angle from the V orientation. For example, a light beam can be polar- ized at +45 degrees from the V orientation, in which case we say it is diagonally polarized, or D-pol. Or it can be polar- ized at -45 degrees from the V orientation, in which case we say it is antidiagonally polarized, or A-pol, as shown in FIGURE 2.4. pol D-pol waeen Wo Figure 2.4 Examples of ight potrization Let’s say a light beam is purely D-pol, but you don’t know that. You pass the beam through the calcite crystal as in FIGURE 2.3. Can you predict the result? It is found that, when you do this experiment, you register equal amounts of lightChapter 2 Quantum Measurement and Its Consequences 29 at each detector. That is, D-pol light somehow contains equal proportions of H and V polarization. In quantum physics, we call such a situation a superposition of possibilities. The cal- cite crystal separates the light into these two possibilities. You might be wondering: We started with D-pol light. How did it change to V and H? This result may seem mysterious, and exploring its underlying cause can lead us to a deep under- standing of light and of quantum physics. Another important fact is that all the light that exited the crystal in the V-pol beam is now V-pol, even though the original beam was D-pol. This fact can be checked by pass- ing the exiting beam through a second H/V-oriented calcite crystal. It is found that all the light in this case exits the sec- ond crystal in the V-pol beam, confirming its polarization was V-pol. We just discussed that purely D-pol light is made up of equal parts of V-pol and H-pol light. Yet it is not merely a mixture of V- and H-pol light, as is sunlight. You can verify this by pass- ing D-pol light through a calcite crystal that is itself oriented at -45 degrees from vertical, as in FIGURE 2.5. As shown, the light would pass through without splitting into two beams and would remain D-pol. You would observe no light in the A-pol beam. In contrast, sunlight, which contains a mixture of polarizations, would split equally into D-pol and A-pol beams, as mentioned previously. D/A calcite Figure 2.5 Although diagonally polarized ight is made of equal parts vertically polarized «and horizontally polarized light, when it passes through a D/A calcite crystal (oriented at ~45 degrees), itremains D-pol and exits in the corresponding beam.