Study the Collapse of the Wave Function in Traveling‐Wave Parametric Amplifiers

Our experimental proposal for testing the collapse of the wavefunction during amplification.

The readout of a microwave qubit state occurs using an amplification chain that enlarges the quantum state to a signal detectable with a classical measurement apparatus. However, at what point in this process is the quantum state really “measured”? To investigate whether the “measurement” takes place in the amplification chain, in which a parametric amplifier is often chosen as the first amplifier, we proposed to construct a microwave interferometer that has such an amplifier added to each of its arms. Feeding the interferometer with single photons, the interference visibility depends on the gain of the amplifiers and whether a measurement collapse has taken place during the amplification process. 

Van der Reep et al., Phys. Status Solidi B 2020, 2000567

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