Experimental observation of a quantum cheshire cat using a weak measuring device

In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, mischievous grin of a Cheshire cat is sometimes dis-embodied from her body. Quantum theory allows such a counterintuitive phenomenon, known as the quantum Cheshire cat effect [1], to happen for apre- and post-selected (PPS) system. While observing the quantum Cheshire cat, the physical property and the carrier's location should be weakly probed with a measuring device to leave the quantum state with negligible disturbance. To date, experimental observations of the quantum Cheshire cat effect have been realized with a single neutron as well as with a single photon [2, 3]. However, their observations relied on weakly disturbing elements instead of a true weak measuring device. In this work, we report the experimental observation of the quantum Cheshire cat effect with a weak measuring device. To investigate the quantum Cheshire cat effect, we employ a photon pair generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC). The elements of quantum Cheshire cat, namely the body (photon) and the grin (polarization), are indirectly probed with a quantum pointer using another single photon, where both the body and the grin are weakly measured without destroying the photon itself.