Direct observation of temporal coherence by weak projective measurements of photon arrival time

Abstract

We show that a weak projective measurement of photon arrival time can be realized by controllable two-photon interferences with photons from short-time reference pulses at a polarization beam splitter. The weak value of the projector on the arrival time defined by the reference pulse can be obtained from the coincidence rates conditioned by a specific output measurement. If the weak measurement is followed by a measurement of frequency, the coincidence counts reveal the complete temporal coherence of the single-photon wave function. Significantly, the weak values of the input state can also be obtained at higher measurement strengths, so that correlations between weak measurements on separate photons can be observed and evaluated without difficulty. The method can thus be used to directly observe the nonclassical statistics of time-energy entangled photons.