Simulation of wave-particle duality in multi-path interferometers on a quantum computer

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum computing approach to simulate wave-particle duality in multi-path interferometers, efficiently extracting interference and which-path information, and demonstrates its implementation on a NISQ device for up to 16 paths.

Contribution

The authors develop a scalable quantum algorithm for simulating wave-particle duality in multi-path interferometers, enabling analysis of complex systems beyond classical capabilities.

Findings

Successful implementation on a NISQ device with up to 16 paths

Efficient measurement scheme for interference and which-path information

Observation of complementary behavior consistent with wave-particle duality

Abstract

We present an architecture to investigate wave-particle duality in $N$-path interferometers on a universal quantum computer involving as low as $2\log N$ qubits and develop a measurement scheme which allows the efficient extraction of quantifiers of interference visibility and which-path information. We implement our algorithms for interferometers with up to $N=16$ paths in proof-of-principle experiments on a noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) device using down to $\mathcal{O}(\log N)$ gates and despite increasing noise consistently observe a complementary behavior between interference visibility and which-path information. Our results are in accordance with our current understanding of wave-particle duality and allow its investigation for interferometers with an exponentially growing number of paths on future quantum devices beyond the NISQ era.