Protective measurement - a new quantum measurement paradigm: Detailed description of the first realization

We present a detailed description of the experiment realizing for the first time a protective measurement, a novel measurement protocol which combines weak interactions with a “protection mechanism” preserving the measured state coherence during the whole measurement process. Furthermore, protective measurement allows finding the expectation value of an observable, i.e., an inherently statistical quantity, by measuring a single particle, without the need for any statistics. This peculiar property, in sharp contrast to the framework of traditional (projective) quantum measurement, might constitute a groundbreaking advance for several quantum technology related fields.