Measurement with indefinite causal order and the Sagnac interferometer

It has been shown that measurements involving indefinite causal order can be superior to those in which a sequence of operations occurs in a specified order. In optics, such measurements are realized naturally in a Sagnac interferometer. We show that such an arrangement can measure the solid angle (on the Poincaré sphere) enclosed by a sequence of unitary transformations of the polarization. This is the Pancharatnam-Berry phase. Extension from the classical or single-photon treatment to a fully quantized treatment allows the analysis of the interferometer for arbitrary quantum states of light.This article is part of the theme issue 'The quantum theory of light'.