Regular Article

Quantum coherence and path-distinguishability of two entangled particles

¹ Department of Physics, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India
² Centre for Theoretical Physics, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India

^a e-mail: tabish@ctp-jamia.res.in

Received: 28 July 2018
Received in final form: 16 December 2018
Published online: 7 February 2019

Abstract

An interference experiment with entangled particles is theoretically analyzed, where one of the entangled pair (particle 1) goes through a multi-slit before being detected at a fixed detector. In addition, one introduces a mechanism for finding out which of the n slits did particle 1 go through. The other particle of the entangled pair (particle 2) goes in a different direction, and is detected at a variable, spatially separated location. In coincident counting, particle 2 shows n-slit interference. It is shown that the normalized quantum coherence of particle 2, C₂, and the path-distinguishability of particle 1, D_Q1, are bounded by an inequality D_Q1 + C₂ ≤ 1. This is a kind of nonlocal duality relation, which connects the path distinguishability of one particle to the quantum coherence of the other.