Measuring the Quantum State of a Large Angular Momentum

Preprint

4 January 2001

preprint
Published by arXiv in arXiv

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.quant-ph/0101017

Abstract

We demonstrate a general method to measure the quantum state of an angular momentum of arbitrary magnitude. The (2F+1) x (2F+1) density matrix is completely determined from a set of Stern-Gerlach measurements with (4F+1) different orientations of the quantization axis. We implement the protocol for laser cooled Cesium atoms in the 6S_{1/2}(F=4) hyperfine ground state and apply it to a variety of test states prepared by optical pumping and Larmor precession. A comparison of input and measured states shows typical reconstruction fidelities of about 0.95.

Keywords

ANGULAR MOMENTUM
LARGE ANGULAR
LASER
MEASURE THE QUANTUM
MOMENTUM
OPTICAL PUMPING
QUANTIZATION
QUANTUM STATE
STATE

All Related Versions

Version 1, 2001-01-04, ArXiv
Published version: Physical Review Letters, 86 (21), 4721.

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