Hi all,

Tuesday we have a special group meeting talk from Lev Vaidman of Tel Aviv University, who will be visiting all week. See below for title and abstract. (Many of you will have already received an announcement via the QSIT or ITP mailing lists). Since we expect potentially more interest and anyway our group meeting location is too small, I've booked a bigger room over in HIL. Also we'll start at 3 pm instead of 3:30 due to other scheduling constraints. I hope the interior of HIL is nicer than the exterior suggests...

Best,

-joe

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Title:

Weak value: A property of a single pre and postselected system

Abstract: The weak value of a quantum variable was introduced by Aharonov, Albert, and Vaidman in 1988 as an outcome of a standard quantum measurement with weakened coupling performed on an ensemble of pre and postselected systems. A common interpretation of the weak value is a conditional expectation value (with even claims that it is not necessarily a quantum concept). I will argue that it has a deeper meaning as a robust property of a single pre and postselected system. Experimental demonstration supporting this claim will be reported and some controversies about weak values will be discussed. An application of a new paradigm of the past of a quantum particle as the weak value of a projection for a novel alignment method will be reported.