Atomic retrodiction

Barnett, Stephen M. and Pegg, D.T. and Jeffers, J. and Jedrkiewicz, O. (2000) Atomic retrodiction. Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 33 (16). pp. 3047-3065. ISSN 0953-4075 (https://doi.org/10.1088/0953-4075/33/16/309)

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Abstract

Measurement of a quantum system provides information concerning the state in which it was prepared. In this paper we show how the retrodictive formalism can be used to evaluate the probability associated with any one of a given set of preparation events. We illustrate our method by calculating the retrodictive density operator for a two-level atom coupled to the electromagnetic field.