We report the experimental realization and tomographic analysis of novel quantum light states obtained by exciting a classical thermal field by a single photon. Such states, although completely incoherent, possess a tunable degree of quantumness which is here exploited to put to a stringent experimental test some of the criteria proposed for the proof and the measurement of state non-classicality. The quantum character of the states is also given in quantum information terms by evaluating the amount of entanglement that they can produce.
We report the experimental reconstruction of a nonclassicality quasiprobability for a single-photon added thermal state. This quantity has significant negativities, which is necessary and sufficient for the nonclassicality of the quantum state. Our method presents several advantages compared to the reconstruction of the P function, since the nonclassicality filters used in this case can regularize the quasiprobabilities as well as their statistical uncertainties. A-priori assumptions about the quantum state are therefore not necessary. We also demonstrate that, in principle, our method is not …
The effects of von Neumann postselected measurement on nonclassicality of single-photon-added coherent state (SPACS) are studied. Explicit expressions and analytical results for various field properties of SPACS such as the photon number distribution, the Mandel Q_{m} factor and the squeezing parameter of field quadrature after postselected von Neumann measurement are investigated. The results showed that the nonclassicality of SPACS after measurement changed dramatically than initial state. The measurement let SPACS possess more strong sub-Poissonian photon statistics in some definite couplin…
Nonclassical properties of photon added and photon subtracted squeezed coherent states have been compared with specific focus on the higher order nonclassicalities, such as higher order squeezing, higher order sub-Poissonian photon statistics, higher order antibunching. It is observed that both photon added and photon subtracted squeezed coherent states are highly nonclassical as they satisfy criteria for all of the above mentioned nonclassicalities and a set of other criteria including negativity of Wigner function, Klyshko's criterion and Agarwal's $(A_{3})$ parameter. Further, the amount of…
Theoretical analysis is given of nonclassicality and decoherence of the field states generated by adding any number of photons to the squeezed thermal state (STS). Based on the fact that the squeezed number state can be considered as a single-variable Hermite polynomial excited state, the compact expression of the normalization factor is derived, a Legendre polynomial. The nonclassicality is investigated by exploring the sub-Poissonian and negative Wigner function (WF). The results show that the WF of single photon-added STS (PASTS) always has negative values at the phase space center. The dec…
We introduce a kind of entangled state---photon-addition two-mode squeezed thermal state (TMSTS) by adding photons to each mode of the TMSTS. Using the P-representation of thermal state, the compact expression of the normalization factor is derived, a Jacobi polynomial. The nonclassicality is investigated by exploring especially the negativity of Wigner function. The entanglement is discussed by using Shchukin-Vogel criteria. It is shown that the photon-addtion to the TMSTS may be more effective for the entanglement enhancement than the photon-subtraction from the TMSTS. In addition, the quant…
We study the nonclassicality of photon-added squeezed vacuum (PASV) and its decoherence in thermal environment in terms of the sub-Poissonian statistics and the negativity of Wigner function (WF). By converting the PASV to a squeezed Hermite polynomial excitation state, we derive a compact expression for the normalization factor of m-PASV, which is an m-order Legendre polynomial of squeezing parameter r. We also derive the explicit expression of WF of m-PASV and find the negative region of WF in phase space. We show that there is an upper bound value of r for this state to exhibit sub-Poissoni…
Non-Gaussianity inducing operations are studied in the recent past from different perspectives. Here, we study the role of photon addition, a non-Gaussianity inducing operation, in the enhancement of nonclassicality in a finite dimensional quantum state, namely hypergeometric state with the help of some quantifiers and measures of nonclassicality. We observed that measures to characterize the quality of single photon source and anticlassicality lead to the similar conclusion, i.e., to obtain the desired quantum features one has to choose all the state parameters such that average photon number…
Higher-order nonclassical properties of r photon added and t photon subtracted qudit states (referred to as rPAQS and tPSQS, respectively) are investigated here to answer: How addition and subtraction of photon can be used engineer higher-order nonclassical properties of qudit states? To obtain the answer higher-order moment of relevant bosonic field operators are first obtained for rPAQS and tPSQS, and subsequently the same is used to study the higher-order nonclassical properties of the corresponding states. A few witnesses of higher-order nonclassicality (e.g. Higher-Order Antibunching, Hig…
We study the nonclassicality of the evolution of a superposition of an arbitrary number of photon-added squeezed coherent Schrödinger cat states in a nonlinear Kerr medium. The nonlinearity of the medium gives rise to the periodicities of the quantities such as the Wehrl entropy $S_{Q}$ and the negativity $δ_{W}$ of the $W$-distribution, and a series of local minima of these quantities arise at the rational submultiples of the said period. At these local minima the evolving state coincides with the transient Yurke-Stoler type of photon-added squeezed kitten states, which, for the choice of the…
We investigate the nonclassicality of photon-added coherent states in the photon loss channel by exploring the entanglement potential and negative Wigner distribution. The total negative probability defined by the absolute value of the integral of the Wigner function over the negative distribution region reduces with the increase of decay time. The total negative probability and the entanglement potential of pure photon-added coherent states exhibit the similar dependence on the beam intensity. The reduce of the total negative probability is consistent with the behavior of entanglement potenti…
The concept of photon added two-mode Schrödinger cat states in which both modes are independent is introduced, their non-classical properties and entanglement are studied. The introduced states emerge as the eigenstates of $f_1f_2a_1a_2$, where $f_1, f_2$ are nonlinear functions of the number operator and $a_1, a_2$ are annihilation operators. We study the evolution of these states under the canonical transformation using the parity operator for the case of standard coherent states of the harmonic oscillator. The non-classical properties of these states are evaluated especially by considering …
Non-Gaussian and nonclassical states and processes are already found to be important resources for performing various tasks related to quantum gravity and quantum information processing. The effect of non-Gaussianity inducing operators on the nonclassicality of quantum states has also been studied rigorously. Considering these facts, a quantitative analysis of the nonclassical and non-Gaussian features is performed here for photon added displaced Fock state, as a test case, using a set of measures like entanglement potential, Wigner Yanese skew information, Wigner logarithmic negativity and re…
It is demonstrated that thermal radiation of small occupation number is strongly nonclassical. This includes most forms of naturally occurring radiation. Nonclassicality can be observed as a negative weak value of a positive observable. It is related to negative values of the Margenau-Hill quasi-probability distribution.
Nonclassical properties of photon added and subtracted displaced Fock states have been studied using various witnesses of lower- and higher-order nonclassicality. Compact analytic expressions are obtained for the nonclassicality witnesses. Using those expressions, it is established that these states and the states that can be obtained as their limiting cases (except coherent states) are highly nonclassical as they show the existence of lower- and higher-order antibunching and sub-Poissonian photon statistics, in addition to the nonclassical features revealed through the Mandel $Q_M$ parameter,…
The algebraic quantification of nonclassicality, which naturally arises from the quantum superposition principle, is related to properties of regular nonclassicality quasiprobabilities. The latter are obtained by non-Gaussian filtering of the Glauber-Sudarshan $P$~function. They yield lower bounds for the degree of nonclassicality. We also derive bounds for convex combinations of Gaussian states for certifying quantum non-Gaussianity directly from the experimentally accessible nonclassicality quasiprobabilities. Other quantum-state representations, such as $s$-parametrized quasiprobabilities, …
The nonclassicality of single photon-added thermal states in the thermal channel is investigated by exploring the volume of the negative part of the Wigner function. The Wigner functions become positive when the decay time exceeds a threshold value $γ{t}_c$, which only depends on the effective temperature or mean thermal photon number of the thermal channel, but not depends on the effective temperature of the initial thermal state. This phenomenon is similar with the case of single quantum excitation of classical coherent states in thermal channel. Furthermore, we firstly demonstrate $γ{t}_c$ …
The nonclassicality of photon-added coherent fields in the thermal channel is investigated by exploring the volume of the negative part of the Wigner function which reduces with the dissipative time. The Wigner functions become positive when the decay time exceeds a threshold value. For the case of the single photon-added coherent state, we derive the exact threshold values of decay time in the thermal channel. For arbitrary partial negative Wigner distribution function, a generic analytical relation between the mean photon number of heat bath and the threshold value of decay time is presented…
Quantum nonclassicality is the basic building stone for the vast majority of quantum information applications and methods of its generation are at the forefront of research. One of the obstacles any method needs to clear is the looming presence of decohorence and noise which act against the nonclassicality and often erase it completely. In this paper we show that nonclassical states of a quantum harmonic oscillators initially in thermal equilibrium states can be deterministically created by coupling it to a single two level system. This can be achieved even in the absorption regime in which th…
Thermal machines exploit interactions with multiple heat baths to perform useful tasks, such as work production and refrigeration. In the quantum regime, tasks with no classical counterpart become possible. Here, we consider the minimal setting for quantum thermal machines, namely two-qubit autonomous thermal machines that use only incoherent interactions with their environment, and investigate the fundamental resources needed to generate entanglement. Our investigation is systematic, covering different types of interactions, bosonic and fermionic environments, and different resources that can…
Nonclassicality conditions for an oscillator-like system interacting with a hot thermal bath are considered. Nonclassical properties of quantum states can be conserved up to a certain temperature threshold only. In this case, affection of the thermal noise can be compensated via transformation of an observable, which tests the nonclassicality (witness function). Possibilities for experimental implementations based on unbalanced homodyning are discussed. At the same time, we demonstrate that the scheme based on balanced homodyning cannot be improved for noisy states with proposed technique and …
In spite of its fundamental importance in quantum science and technology, the experimental certification of nonclassicality is still a challenging task, especially in realistic scenarios where losses and noise imbue the system. Here, we present the first experimental implementation of the recently introduced phase-space inequalities for nonclassicality certification, which conceptually unite phase-space representations with correlation conditions. We demonstrate the practicality and sensitivity of this approach by studying nonclassicality of a family of noisy and lossy quantum states of light.…
Rotated quadratures carry the phase-dependent information of the electromagnetic field, so they are somehow conjugate to the photon number. We analyze this noncanonical pair, finding an exact uncertatinty relation, as well as a couple of weaker inequalities obtained by relaxing some restrictions of the problem. We also find the intelligent states saturating that relation and complete their characterization by considering extra constraints on the second-order moments of the variables involved. Using these moments, we construct performance measures tailored to diagnose photon-added and Schröding…
{\small We investigate nonclassical properties of the field states generated by subtracting any number photon from the squeezed thermal state (STS). It is found that the normalization factor of photon-subtracted STS (PSSTS) is a Legendre polynomial of squeezing parameter }${\small r}${\small \ and average photon number }$\bar{n}$ {\small of thermal state. Expressions of several quasi-probability distributions of PSSTS are derived analytically. Furthermore, the nonclassicality is discussed in terms of the negativity of Wigner function (WF). It is shown that the WF of single PSSTS always has neg…
Nonclassicality filters provide a universal method to visualize the nonclassicality of arbitrary quantum states of light through negativities of a regularized Glauber-Sudarshan $P$ function, also denoted as nonclassicality quasiprobability. Such filters are introduced and analyzed for optimizing the experimental certification of nonclassical effects. An analytic filter is constructed which preserves the full information on the quantum state. For balanced homodyne detection, the number of data points is analyzed to get the negativities of the nonclassicality quasiprobability with high statistic…
We propose a definition of nonclassicality for a single-mode quantum-optical process based on its action on coherent states. If a quantum process transforms a coherent state to a nonclassical state, it is verified to be nonclassical. To identify nonclassical processes, we introduce a representation for quantum processes, called the process-nonclassicality quasiprobability distribution, whose negativities indicate nonclassicality of the process. Using this distribution, we derive a relation for predicting nonclassicality of the output states for a given input state. We experimentally demonstrat…
Dynamics of atom-field correlations and single-mode nonclassicalities present in the resonant Jaynes-Cummings model are investigated using negativity and entanglement potential for a set of initial states. The study has revealed the interplay between three different types of nonclassicality present in the model and established that the nonclassicality is continuously exchanged between the field and atom through the atom-field correlations. Further, it is observed that the entanglement potential does not capture all the single-mode nonclassicality and there exists some residual nonclassicality …
The quantum backflow effect is a counterintuitive behavior of the probability current of a free particle, which may be negative even for states with vanishing negative momentum component. Here we address the notion of nonclassicality arising from the backflow effect, i.e. from the negativity of the probability current, and analyze its relationships with the notion of nonclassicality based on the negativity of the Wigner function. Our results suggest that backflow is linked to a different, and in fact more restrictive, notion of nonclassicality, the negativity of the Wigner function being only …
We examine nonclassical properties of the field states generated by applying the photon annihilation-then-creation operation (AC) and creation-then-annihilation operation (CA) to the thermal and coherent states. Effects of repeated applications of AC and of CA are also studied. We also discuss experimental schemes to realize AC and CA with a cavity system using atom-field interactions.
We use the exact calculation of the quantum mechanical, temporal characteristic function $χ(η)$ and the degree of second-order coherence $g^{(2)}(τ)$ for a single-mode, degenerate parametric amplifier for a system in the Gaussian state, viz., a displaced-squeezed thermal state, to study the different criteria for nonclassicality. In particular, we contrast criteria that involve only one-time functions of the dynamical system, for instance, the quasiprobability distribution $P(β)$ of the Glauber-Sudarshan coherent or P-representation of the density of state and the Mandel $Q_{M}(τ)$ parameter, …
A quantum state is nonclassical if its Glauber-Sudarshan P function fails to be interpreted as a probability density. This quantity is often highly singular, so that its reconstruction is a demanding task. Here we present the experimental determination of a well-behaved P function showing negativities for a single-photon-added thermal state. This is a direct visualization of the original definition of nonclassicality. The method can be useful under conditions for which many other signatures of nonclassicality would not persist.
In this paper, ordinary and amplitude-squared squeezing as well as Wigner functions of single-photon-added coherent state after postselected von Neumann measurements are investigated. The analytical results show that the von Neumann type measurement which is characterized by post-selection and weak value can significantly change the squeezing feature of single-photon-added coherent state. It is also found that the postselected measurement can increase the nonclassicality of the original state in strong measurement regimes. It is anticipated that this work could may provide an alternate and eff…
We address the pair of conjugated field modes obtained from parametric-downconversion as a convenient system to analyze the quantum-classical transition in the continuous variable regime. We explicitly evaluate intensity correlations, negativity and entanglement for the system in a thermal state and show that a hierarchy of nonclassicality thresholds naturally emerges in terms of thermal and downconversion photon number. We show that the transition from quantum to classical regime may be tuned by controlling the intensities of the seeds and detected by intensity measurements. Besides, we show …
The effect of two quantum state engineering processes that can be used to burn hole at vacuum in the photon number distribution of quantum states of radiation field are compared using various witnesses of lower- and higher-order nonclassicality as well as a measure of nonclassicality. Specifically, the witnesses of nonclassical properties due to the effect of vacuum state filtration and a single photon addition on an even coherent state, binomial state and Kerr state are investigated using the criteria of lower- and higher-order antibunching, squeezing and sub-Poissonian photon statistics. Fur…
We calculate exactly the quantum mechanical, temporal characteristic function $χ(η)$ for a single-mode, degenerate parametric amplifier for a system in the Gaussian state, viz., a displaced-squeezed thermal state. Knowledge of $χ(η)$ allows only the determination of the time development of arbitrary functions of equal-time products of creation and annihilation photon operators. We calculate, in particular, the fluctuations in photon number, quadrature operators, and quadrature variance. We contrast the very important difference between the nonclassicality criteria based on the one-time charact…
Quantum and global discord in a spin-1 Heisenberg chain subject to single-ion anisotropy (uniaxial field) are studied using exact diagonalisation and the density matrix renormalisation group (DMRG). We find that these measures of quantum nonclassicality are able to detect the quantum phase transitions confining the symmetry protected Haldane phase and show critical scaling with universal exponents. Moreover, in the case of thermal states, we find that quantum discord can increase with increasing temperature.
We investigate the nonclassicality of several kinds of nonclassical optical fields such as the pure or mixed single photon-added coherent states and the cat states in the photon-loss or the dephasing channels by exploring the entanglement potential as the measure. It is shown that the long-time decay of entanglement potentials of these states in photon loss channel is dependent of their initial quadrature squeezing properties. In the case of photon-loss, transition of long-time decay rate emerges at the boundary between the squeezing and non-squeezing initial non-gaussian states if log-negativ…
We report on the robust experimental accumulation of nonclassicallity of motion of a single trapped ion. The nonclassicality stems from deterministic incoherent modulation of thermal phonon number distribution implemented by a laser excitation of nonlinear coupling between the ion's internal - electronic levels and external - motional states. We demonstrate that the repetitive application of this nonlinear process monotonically accumulates the observable state nonclassicality. The output states converge to a phonon number distribution with high overlap with a particular Fock state and visible …
We quantitatively investigate the non-classicality and non-locality of a whole new class of mixed disparate quantum and semiquantum photon sources at the quantum-classical boundary. The latter include photon added thermal and photon added coherent sources, experimentally investigated recently by Zavatta et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 140406 (2009)]. The key quantity in our investigations is the visibility of the corresponding photon-photon correlation function. We present explicit results on the violations of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality - which is a measure of nonclassicality - as well as of …
Rigorous results on approach to thermal equilibrium, entanglement, and nonclassicality of an optical quantum field mode scattering from the elements of a non-equilibrium quantum reservoir
A class of states of the electromagnetic field involving superpositions of all the excited states above a specified low energy eigenstate of the electromagnetic field is introduced. These states and the photon-added coherent states are shown to be the limiting cases of a generalized photon-added coherent states. This new class of states is nonclassical, non-Gaussian and has equal uncertainties in the field quadratures. For suitable choices of parameters, these uncertainties are very close to those of the coherent states. Nevertheless, these states exhibit sub-Poissonian photon number distribut…
We introduce the thermal-difference states (TDS), a three-parameter family of single-mode non-Gaussian bosonic states whose density operator is a weighted difference of two thermal states. We show that the states of "heralded photons" generated via parametric down-conversion (PDC) are precisely those among the TDS that are nonclassical, meaning they have a negative $P$-function. The three parameters correspond in that context to the initial brightness of PDC and the transmittances, characterizing the linear loss in the signal and the idler channels. At low initial brightness and unit transmitt…
Twisted Gaussian Schell States in Quantum Optics: Twist-Assisted Nonclassicality and Entanglement
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro（里约热内卢联邦大学）；Universidad del Bío-Bío（比奥比奥大学）；Universidade Federal Fluminense（弗鲁米嫩塞联邦大学）；Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina（圣卡塔琳娜联邦大学）；Universidad de Concepción（孔塞普西翁大学）；Millennium Institute for Research in Optics, Universidad de Concepción（孔塞普西翁大学光学研究千年研究所）
Explicit expressions for optical tomograms of the photon-added coherent states, even/odd photon-added coherent states and photon-added thermal states are given in terms of Hermite polynomials. Suggestions for experimental homodyne detection of the considered photon states are presented.
A beam's density matrix that is described by the superposition of excitation on coherent states with thermal noise (SECST) is presented, and its matrix elements in Fock space are calculated. The maximum information transmitted by the SECST beam is derived. It is more than that by coherent light beam and increases as the excitation photon number increases. In addition, the nonclassicality of density matrix is demonstrated by calculating its Wigner function.
