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Experimental investigation of the uncertainty principle in the presence of quantum memory

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle provides a fundamental limitation on an observer's ability to simultaneously predict the outcome when one of two measurements is performed on a quantum system. However, if the observer has access to a particle (stored in a quantum memory) which is entangled with the system, his uncertainty is generally reduced. This effect has recently been quantified by Berta et al. [Nature Physics 6, 659 (2010)] in a new, more general uncertainty relation, formulated in terms of entropies. Using entangled photon pairs, an optical delay line serving as a quantum memory and fast, active feed-forward we experimentally probe the validity of this new relation. The behaviour we find agrees with the predictions of quantum theory and satisfies the new uncertainty relation. In particular, we find lower uncertainties about the measurement outcomes than would be possible without the entangled particle. This shows not only that the reduction in uncertainty enabled by entanglement can be significant in practice, but also demonstrates the use of the inequality to witness entanglement.