Direct observation of geometric phases using a three-pinhole interferometer

Abstract: We present a method to measure the geometric phase defined for three internal states of a photon (polarizations) using a three-pinhole interferometer. From the interferogram, we can extract the geometric phase related to the three-vertex Bargmann invariant as the area of a triangle formed by interference fringes. Unlike the conventional methods, our method does not involve the state evolution. Moreover, the phase calibration of the interferometer and the elimination of the dynamical phase are not required. The gauge invariance of the geometric phase corresponds to the fact that the area of the triangle is never changed by the local phase shift in each internal state.