Measurement of quantum weak values of photon polarization

Phys Rev Lett. 2005 Jun 10;94(22):220405. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.220405. Epub 2005 Jun 9.

Abstract

We experimentally determine weak values for a single photon's polarization, obtained via a weak measurement that employs a two-photon entangling operation, and postselection. The weak values cannot be explained by a semiclassical wave theory, due to the two-photon entanglement. We observe the variation in the size of the weak value with measurement strength, obtaining an average measurement of the S1 Stokes parameter more than an order of magnitude outside of the operator's spectrum for the smallest measurement strengths.