Contrast in multipath interference and quantum coherence
Kai von Prillwitz, Łukasz Rudnicki, Florian Mintert · Physical Review A · 2015
We develop a rigorous connection between statistical properties of an interference pattern and the coherence properties of the underlying quantum state. With explicit examples, we demonstrate that even for inaccurate reconstructions of interference patterns, properly defined statistical moments permit a reliable characterization of quantum coherence in terms of the number of coherently superposed state vectors.