Practical measurement of joint weak values and their connection to the annihilation operator

Abstract Weak measurements are a new tool for characterizing post-selected quantum systems during their evolution. Weak measurement was originally formulated in terms of von Neumann interactions which are practically available for only the simplest single-particle observables. In the present work, we extend and greatly simplify a recent, experimentally feasible, reformulation of weak measurement for multiparticle observables [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92 (2004) 130402]. We also show that the resulting “joint weak values” take on a particularly elegant form when expressed in terms of annihilation operators.