TY - JOUR
T1 - Experimental superposition of a quantum evolution with its time reverse
AU - Strömberg, Teodor
AU - Schiansky, Peter
AU - Quintino, Marco Túlio
AU - Antesberger, Michael
AU - Rozema, Lee A.
AU - Agresti, Iris
AU - Brukner, Časlav
AU - Walther, Philip
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.
PY - 2024/4
Y1 - 2024/4
N2 - In the macroscopic world, time is intrinsically asymmetric, flowing in a specific direction, from past to future. However, the same is not necessarily true for quantum systems, as some quantum processes produce valid quantum evolutions under time reversal. Supposing that such processes can be probed in both time directions, we can also consider quantum processes probed in a coherent superposition of forward and backward time directions. This yields a broader class of quantum processes than the ones considered so far in the literature, including those with indefinite causal order. In this work, we demonstrate an operation belonging to this class: the quantum time flip. Using a photonic realisation of this operation, we apply it to a game formulated as a discrimination task between two sets of operators. This game not only serves as a witness of an indefinite time direction, but also allows for a computational advantage over strategies using a fixed time direction, and even those with an indefinite causal order.
AB - In the macroscopic world, time is intrinsically asymmetric, flowing in a specific direction, from past to future. However, the same is not necessarily true for quantum systems, as some quantum processes produce valid quantum evolutions under time reversal. Supposing that such processes can be probed in both time directions, we can also consider quantum processes probed in a coherent superposition of forward and backward time directions. This yields a broader class of quantum processes than the ones considered so far in the literature, including those with indefinite causal order. In this work, we demonstrate an operation belonging to this class: the quantum time flip. Using a photonic realisation of this operation, we apply it to a game formulated as a discrimination task between two sets of operators. This game not only serves as a witness of an indefinite time direction, but also allows for a computational advantage over strategies using a fixed time direction, and even those with an indefinite causal order.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85191019165
U2 - 10.48550/arXiv.2211.01283
DO - 10.48550/arXiv.2211.01283
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85191019165
SN - 2643-1564
VL - 6
JO - Physical Review Research
JF - Physical Review Research
IS - 2
M1 - 023071
ER -