Experimental tests of density matrix's properties-based complementarity relations

TL;DR

This paper experimentally tests new quantum complementarity relations derived from density matrix properties using IBM quantum computers, exploring wave-particle duality in various quantum states.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental validation of complementarity relations based on density matrix properties across multiple qubit states.

Findings

Complementarity relations hold for tested quantum states.

Experimental results align with theoretical predictions.

Demonstrates feasibility of testing quantum foundations on IBM quantum computers.

Abstract

Bohr's complementarity principle is of fundamental historic and conceptual importance for Quantum Mechanics (QM), and states that, with a given experimental apparatus configuration, one can observe either the wave-like or the particle-like character of a quantum system, but not both. However, it was eventually realized that these dual behaviors can both manifest partially in the same experimental setup, and, using ad hoc proposed measures for the wave and particle aspects of the quanton, complementarity relations were proposed limiting how strong these manifestations can be. Recently, a formalism was developed and quantifiers for the particleness and waveness of a quantum system were derived from the mathematical structure of QM entailed in the density matrix's basic properties ($\rho\ge 0$, $\mathrm{Tr}\rho=1$). In this article, using IBM Quantum Experience quantum computers, we perform experimental tests of these complementarity relations applied to a particular class of one-qubit quantum states and also for random quantum states of one, two, and three qubits.