Entanglement of topological phase factors

The topological phase factor induced on interfering electrons by external quantum electromagnetic fields has been studied. Two and three electron interference experiments inside distant cavities are considered and the influence of correlated photons on the phase factors is investigated. It is shown that the classical or quantum correlations of the irradiating photons are transferred to the topological phases. The effect is quantified in terms of Weyl functions for the density operators of the photons and illustrated with particular examples. The scheme employs the generalized phase factor as a mechanism for information transfer from the photons to the electric charges. In this sense, the scheme may be useful in the context of flying qubits (corresponding to photons) and stationary qubits (electrons), as well as the conversion from one type to the other. 1 Present address: Department of Physics, Astrophysics and Mathematics, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield AL10 9AB, UK. New Journal of Physics 7 (2005) 50 PII: S1367-2630(05)87578-