Robustness of interferometric complementarity under decoherence

Abstract

Interferometric complementarity is known to be one of the most nonclassical manifestations of the quantum formalism. It is commonly known as wave-particle duality and has been studied presently from the perspective of quantum information theory where wave and particle nature of a quantum system, called quanton, are characterised by coherence and path distinguishability respectively. We here consider the effect of noisy detectors on the complementarity relation. We report that by suitably choosing the initial quanton and the detector states along with the proper interactions between the quanton and the detectors, one can reduce the influence of noisy environment on complementarity, thereby pushing it towards saturation. To demonstrate this, three kinds of noise on detectors and their roles on the saturation of the complementarity relation are extensively studied. We also observe that for fixed values of parameters involved in the process, asymmetric quanton state posses low value of coherence while it can have a higher amount of distinguishability, and hence it has the potential to enhance the duality relation.