What is nonlocal in counterfactual quantum communication?

ORAL

Abstract

We revisit the “counterfactual quantum communication” of Salih et al., who claim that an observer “Bob” can send one bit of information to a second observer “Alice” without any physical particle traveling between them. We show that a locally conserved, massless current - specifically, a current of modular angular momentum, Lz mod 2$hbar$ - carries the one bit of information. We integrate the flux of Lz mod 2$hbar$ from Bob to Alice and show that it equals one of the two eigenvalues of Lz mod 2$hbar$, either 0 or $hbar$, thus precisely accounting for the one bit of information he sends her. We previously obtained this result using weak values of Lz mod 2$hbar$; here we do not use weak values.

*D.R. thanks the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 1190/13) and the John Templeton Foundation (Project ID 43297) for support. Y.A. thanks the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 1311/14), the ICORE Excellence Center "Circle of Light", and the German-Israeli Project Cooperation (DIP) for support. The opinions expressed in this publication are the authors' and do not necessarily reect the views of any of these supporting foundations.

Presenters

  • Daniel Rohrlich

    • Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Authors

  • Daniel Rohrlich

    • Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
  • Yakir Aharonov

    • Chapman University
    • Tel Aviv University, Chapman University