We propose and analyze a new method to produce single and entangled photons which does not require cavities. It relies on the collective enhancement of light emission as a consequence of the presence of entanglement in atomic ensembles. Light emission is triggered by a laser pulse, and therefore our scheme is deterministic. Furthermore, it allows one to produce a variety of photonic entangled states by first preparing certain atomic states using simple sequences of quantum gates. We analyze the feasibility of our scheme, and particularize it to: ions in linear traps, atoms in optical lattices, and in cells at room temperature.
The generation and storage of entangled photons play important roles in quantum information technique. Spontaneous Raman scattering (SRS) in atomic ensembles provides a promising method to generate entangled photons capable of storage. In the past experiments, a spin-wave-photon entangled state is produced via SRS in an atomic ensemble, with which a pair of entangled photons is obtained. Here, we report a scheme of simultaneously generating two spin-wave-photon entangled states in an atomic ensemble by collecting Stokes photons at two different directions. Based on the obtained two atom-photon…
We investigate a scheme for implementing quantum dense coding via atomic ensembles, where prior distribution of the quantum entangled state is not needed. Our scheme also combines another two distinct advantages: atomic ensembles qubits with long coherent time serve as memory qubits and phtonic qubit as flying qubit. Thus our suggestion may offer a simple and easy way of demonstrating quantum dense coding experimentally via atomic ensembles.
Multi-dimensional entangled states have been proven to be more powerful in some quantum information process. In this paper, down-converted photons from spontaneous parametric down conversion(SPDC) are used to engineer multi-dimensional entangled states. A kind of multi-degree multi-dimensional Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger(GHZ) state can also be generated. The hyper-entangled photons, which are entangled in energy-time, polarization and orbital angular momentum (OAM), is proved to be useful to increase the dimension of systems and investigate higher-dimensional entangled states.
We present a proposal for storing and retrieving a continuous-variable quadripartite polarization-entangled cluster state, using macroscopic atomic ensembles in a magnetic field. The Larmor precession of the atomic spins leads to a symmetry between the atomic canonical operators. In this scheme, each of the four spatially separated pulses passes twice through the respective ensemble in order to map the polarization-entangled cluster state onto the long-lived atomic ensembles. The stored state can then be retrieved by another four read-out pulses, each crossing the respective ensemble twice. By…
A method for generating entangled cat states of two modes of a microwave cavity field is proposed. Entanglement results from the interaction of the field with a beam of atoms crossing the microwave resonator, giving rise to non-unitary dynamics of which the target entangled state is a fixed point. We analyse the robustness of the generated two-mode photonic "cat state" against dephasing and losses by means of numerical simulation. This proposal is an instance of quantum reservoir engineering of photonic systems.
We present a proposal for realizing local decoherence-free evolution of given entangled states of two two-level (TL) ions. For two TL ions coupled to a single heavily damped cavity, we can use engineering reservoir scheme to obtain a decoherence-free subspace which can be nonadiabatically controlled by the system and reservoir parameters. Then the local decoherence-free evolution of the entangled states are achieved. And we also discuss the relation between the geometric phases and the entanglement of the two ions under the nonadiabatic coherent evolution.
We investigate how quantum coincidence interferometry is affected by a controllable manipulation of transverse wave-vectors in type-II parametric down conversion using adaptive optics techniques. In particular, we discuss the possibility of spatial walk-off compensation in quantum interferometry and a new effect of even-order spatial aberration cancellation.
We consider the optical generation and verification of entanglement in atomic ensembles under non-uniform interaction between the ensemble and an optical mode. We show that for a wide range of parameters a system of non-uniformly coupled atomic spins can be described as an ensemble of uniformly coupled spins with a reduced effective atom-light coupling and a reduced effective atom number, with a reduction factor of order unity given by the ensemble-mode geometry. This description is valid even for complex entangled states with arbitrary phase-space distribution functions as long as the detecti…
We implemented a triply entangled Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger(GHZ)-like state and coherently manipulated the spin, path, and energy degrees of freedom in a single neutron system. The GHZ-like state was analyzed with an inequality derived by Mermin: we determined the four expectation values and finally obtained M = 2.558 +/- 0.004 > 2, which exhibits a clear violation of the noncontextual assumption and confirms quantum contextuality.
We discuss the application of dipole blockade techniques for the preparation of single atom and single photon sources. A deterministic protocol is given for loading a single atom in an optical trap as well as ejecting a controlled number of atoms in a desired direction. A single photon source with an optically controlled beam-like emission pattern is described.
It was shown in Ref.[Phys.Rev.A 77,045802(2008)] that the dynamics of a control atom and an atomic sample interacting dispersively with a cavity can be discribed by the Jaynes-Cummings model and the collective mode of the atomic sample can be analogous with a bosonic mode. Here, by analogizing the behaviour of the atomic sample with the one of the cavity, we propose a scheme to generate cluster states of atomic ensembles by Cavity QED.
A practical scheme is proposed for creation of continuous variable entangled cluster states of four distinct atomic ensembles located inside a high-finesse ring cavity. The scheme does not require a set of external input squeezed fields, a network of beam splitters and measurements. It is based on nothing else than the dispersive interaction between the atomic ensembles and the cavity mode and a sequential application of laser pulses of a suitably adjusted amplitudes and phases. We show that the sequential laser pulses drive the atomic "field modes" into pure squeezed vacuum states. The state …
We study the dissipative preparation of many-body entangled Gaussian states in bosonic lattice models which could be relevant for quantum technology applications. We assume minimal resources, represented by systems described by particle-conserving quadratic Hamiltonians, with a single localized squeezed reservoir. We show that in this way it is possible to prepare, in the steady state, the wide class of pure states which can be generated by applying a generic passive Gaussian transformation on a set of equally squeezed modes. This includes non-trivial multipartite entangled states such as clus…
This theoretical proposal investigates how resonant interactions occurring when a harmonic oscillator is fed with a stream of entangled qubits allow us to stabilize squeezed states of the harmonic oscillator. We show that the properties of the squeezed state stabilized by this engineered reservoir, including the squeezing strength, can be tuned at will through the parameters of the "input" qubits, albeit in tradeoff with the convergence rate. We also discuss the influence of the type of entanglement in the input, from a pairwise case to a more widely distributed case. This paper can be read in…
Heralded generation and manipulation of quantum entanglement between two macroscopic and spatially separated crystals at room temperature is theoretically studied. We show that by combining an x-ray parametric down-conversion source and x-ray interferometry with nuclear resonant scattering techniques, two macroscopic crystals hosting Mössbauer nuclei located each on an interferometer arm can be entangled for few tens of nanoseconds. The coherence time of the entanglement state can be prolonged up to values comparable to the lifetime of a single nuclear excited state, on the order of hundred na…
The quantum state of the photon pair generated from type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion pumped by a ultrafast laser pulse exhibits strong decoherence in its polarization entanglement, an effect which can be attributed to the clock effect of the pump pulse or, equivalently, to distinguishing spectral information in the two-photon state. Here, we propose novel temporal and spectral engineering techniques to eliminate these detrimental decoherence effects. The temporal engineering of the two-photon wavefunction results in a universal Bell-state synthesizer that is independent of the ch…
We propose a method to generate entangled states of the vibrational modes of N membranes which are coupled to a cavity mode via the radiation pressure. Using sideband excitations, we show that arbitrary entangled states of vibrational modes of different membranes can be produced in principle by sequentially applying a series of classical pulses with desired frequencies, phases and durations. As examples, we show how to synthesize several typical entangled states, for example, Bell states, NOON states, GHZ states and W states. The environmental effect, information leakage, and experimental feas…
We theoretically investigate the spectral property of biphoton state from the cascade emissions from a Doppler-broadened atomic ensemble. This biphoton state is spontaneously created in the four-wave-mixing process. The upper transition of the emissions lies in telecom bandwidth, which prevails in fiber-based quantum communication for low-loss transmission. We obtain the spectral property in terms of superradiant decay rates of the lower transition, excitation pulse durations, and temperature of the medium. We quantify their frequency entanglement by Schmidt decomposition and find that more en…
We investigate the quantum state generated by optical parametric down-conversion in a $χ^{(2) } $ medium driven by two noncollinear light modes. The analysis shows the emergence of multipartite, namely 3- or 4-partite, entangled states in a subset of the spatio-temporal modes generated by the process. These appear as bright spots against the background fluorescence, providing an interesting analogy with the phenomenology recently observed in two-dimensional nonlinear photonic crystals. We study two realistic setups: i) Non-critical phase-matching in a periodically poled Lithium Tantalate slab,…
Multiparticle entangled states generated via interaction between narrow-band light and an ensemble of identical two-level atoms are considered. Depending on the initial photon statistics, correlation between atoms and photons can give rise to entangled states of these systems. It is found that the state of any pair of atoms interacting with weak single-mode squeezed light is inseparable and robust against decay. Optical schemes for preparing entangled states of atomic ensembles by projective measurement are described.
Efficient heralded generation of entanglement together with its manipulation is of great importance for quantum communications. In addition, states generated with bandwidths naturally compatible with atomic transitions allow a more efficient mapping of light into matter which is an essential requirement for long distance quantum communications. Here we propose a scheme where the indistinguishability between two spontaneous four-wave mixing processes is engineered to herald generation of single-photon frequency-bin entangled states, i.e., single-photons shared by two distinct frequency modes. W…
We propose a novel scheme for the efficient production of "NOON states" based on the resonant interaction of a pair of quantized cavity modes with an ensemble of atoms. We show that in the strong-coupling regime the adiabatic evolution of the system tends to a limiting state that describes mesoscopic entanglement between photons and atoms which can easily be converted to a purely photonic or atomic NOON state. We also demonstrate the remarkable property that the efficiency of this scheme increases exponentially with the cavity cooperativity factor, which gives efficient access to high number N…
It has been shown that there are not only transverse but also longitudinal couplings between microwave fields and a superconducting qubit with broken inversion symmetry of the potential energy. Using multiphoton processes induced by longitudinal coupling fields and frequency matching conditions, we design a universal algorithm to produce arbitrary superpositions of two-mode photon states of microwave fields in two separated transmission line resonators, which are coupled to a superconducting qubit. Based on our algorithm, we analyze the generation of evenly-populated states and NOON states. Co…
We theoretically investigate the spectral entanglement of a multiphoton source generated from the cascade emissions in the cascaded cold atomic ensembles.\ This photon source is highly directional, guaranteed under the four-wave mixing condition, and is also highly frequency-correlated due to finite driving pulse durations and superradiant decay constants.\ We utilize Schmidt decomposition to study the bipartite entanglement of the biphoton states projected from the multiphoton ones.\ This entropy of entanglement can be manipulated by controlling the driving parameters and superradiant decay r…
Current quantum theories of consciousness suggest a configuration space of an entangled ensemble state as global work space for conscious experience. This study will describe a procedure for adjustment of the singlet evolution of a quantum computation to a classical signal input by action potentials. The computational output of an entangled state in a single neuron will be selected in a network environment by "survival of the fittest" coupling with other neurons. Darwinian evolution of this coupling will result in a binding of action potentials to a convoluted orbit of phase-locked oscillation…
We propose an effective scheme for realizing a Jaynes-Cummings (J-C) model with the collective nitrogen-vacancy center ensembles (NVE) bosonic modes in a hybrid system. Specifically, the controllable transmon qubit can alternatively interact with one of the two NVEs, which results in the production of $N$ particle entangled states. Arbitrary $N$ particle entangled states, NOON states, N-dimensional entangled states and entangled coherent states are demonstrated. Realistic imperfections and decoherence effects are analyzed via numerical simulation. Since no cavity photons or excited levels of t…
A quantum gravity-gradiometer consists of two spatially separated ensembles of atoms interrogated by pulses of a common laser beam. Laser pulses cause the probability amplitudes of atomic ground-state hyperfine levels to interfere, producing two motion-sensitive phase shifts which allow the measurement of the average acceleration of each ensemble, and, via simple differencing, of the acceleration gradient. Here I propose entangling the quantum states of the two ensembles prior to the pulse sequence, and show that entanglement encodes their relative acceleration in a single interference phase w…
Assessing the quality of an ensemble of noisy entangled states is a central task in quantum information processing. Usually this is done by measuring and hence destroying multiple copies, from which state tomography or fidelity estimation can be employed to characterize states. Here we propose several methods to directly distinguish between two different sets of states, e.g. if their fidelity is above or below a certain threshold value. This turns out to be significantly more efficient, and importantly keeps the verified states intact. We make use of auxiliary entanglement or an ensemble of la…
We present many ensembles of states that can be remotely prepared by using minimum classical bits from Alice to Bob and their previously shared entangled state and prove that we have found all the ensembles in two-dimensional case. Furthermore we show that any pure quantum state can be remotely and faithfully prepared by using finite classical bits from Alice to Bob and their previously shared nonmaximally entangled state though no faithful quantum teleportation protocols can be achieved by using a nonmaximally entangled state.
Practical schemes for creation of multi-mode squeezed (entangled) states of atomic ensembles located inside a high-Q ring cavity are discussed. It is assumed that the cavity is composed of two degenerate mutually counter-propagating modes that can simultaneously couple to the atomic ensembles with the same coupling strengths. The ensembles are composed of ultra-cold atoms which are modeled as four-level systems driven by two laser fields, both co-propagating with one of the cavity directions. We illustrate a procedure that constructs multi-mode squeezed states from the vacuum by a unitary tran…
Atomic ensembles are effective memory nodes for quantum communication network due to the long coherence time and the collective enhancement effect for the nonlinear interaction between an ensemble and a photon. Here we investigate the possibility of achieving the entanglement distillation for nonlocal atomic ensembles by the input-output process of a single photon as a result of cavity quantum electrodynamics. We give an optimal entanglement concentration protocol (ECP) for two-atomic-ensemble systems in a partially entangled pure state with known parameters and an efficient ECP for the system…
Entangled quantum states in high-dimensional space show many advantages compared with entangled states in two-dimensional space. The former enable quantum communication with higher channel capacity, enable more efficient quantum-information processing, and are more feasible for closing the detection loophole in Bell test experiments. Establishing high-dimensional entangled memories is essential for long-distance communication, but its experimental realization is lacking. We experimentally established high-dimensional entanglement in orbital angular momentum space between two atomic ensembles s…
We describe an experimental scheme of preparing multipartite W class of maximally entangled states between many atomic ensembles. The scheme is based on laser manipulation of atomic ensembles and single-photon detection, and well fits the status of the current experimental technology. In addition, we show one of the applications of the kind of W class states, teleporting an entangled state of atomic ensembles with unknown coefficients to more than one distant parties, either one of which equally likely receives the transmitted state.
We investigate the use of quantum-jump-based feedback to manipulate the stability of multipartite entangled dark states in an open quantum system. Using the model proposed in Phys. Rev. A 76, 010301(R) (2007) for a pair of atoms, we show a general strategy to produce many-body singlet stationary entangled states for larger number of atoms. In the case of four qubits, we propose a simple local feedback control that, although not optimal, is realistic and stabilises a highly entangled state. We discuss the limitations and analyse alternative strategies within the framework of direct jump feedbac…
Insufficiency of Pure-State Ensembles in Characterizing Transformations of Entangled States under LOCC
School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong University（山东大学信息科学与工程学院）；School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学物理科学学院）
So far, various multi-photon entangled states have been observed experimentally by using different experimental set-ups. Here, we present a scheme to realize many SLOCC-inequivalent states of three and four qubits via projective measurements on suitable entangled states. We demonstrate how these states can be observed experimentally in a single set-up and study the feasibility of the implementation with present-day technology.
Constructing a quantum memory for a photonic entanglement is vital for realizing quantum communication and network. Besides enabling the realization of high channel capacity communication, entangled photons of high-dimensional space are of great interest because of many extended applications in quantum information and fundamental physics fields. Photons entangled in a two-dimensional space had been stored in different system, but there have been no any report on the storage of a photon pair entangled in a high-dimensional space. Here, we report the first experimental realization of storing an …
One-photon and Raman type interactions between two-level atoms and narrow-band light are considered. We give some exactly solvable models of these processes when only one-photon Fock states are involved in the evolution. Possible application of these models for generation and transformation of entangled states of the W-class, some of which demonstrate hierarchy structure, are discussed. Finally, we consider preparation of entangled chains of atomic ensembles.
Quantum protocols will be more efficient with high-dimensional entangled states. Photons carrying orbital angular momenta can be used to create a high-dimensional entangled state. In this paper we experimentally demonstrate the entanglement of the orbital angular momentum between the Stokes and anti-Stokes photons generated in a hot atomic ensemble using spontaneous four-wave-mixing. This experiment also suggests the existence of the entanglement concerned with spatial degrees of freedom between the hot atomic ensemble and the Stokes photon.
Quantum memory is an essential building block for quantum communication and scalable linear quantum computation. Storing two color entangled photons, with one photon being at telecom-wavelength while the other photon being compatible of quantum memory, has great advantages toward the realization of the fiber based long-distance quantum communication with the aid of quantum repeaters. Here, we report an experimental realization of storing a photon entangled with a telecom photon in polarization as an atomic spin wave in a cold atomic ensemble, thus establishing the entanglement between the tele…
We analyze the effect of realistic noise sources for an atomic clock consisting of a local oscillator that is actively locked to a spin-squeezed (entangled) ensemble of $N$ atoms. We show that the use of entangled states can lead to an improvement of the long-term stability of the clock when the measurement is limited by decoherence associated with instability of the local oscillator combined with fluctuations in the atomic ensemble's Bloch vector. Atomic states with a moderate degree of entanglement yield the maximal clock stability, resulting in an improvement that scales as $N^{1/6}$ compar…
$W$-type entangled states can be used as quantum channels for, e.g., quantum teleportation, quantum dense coding, and quantum key distribution. In this work, we propose a way to generate a macroscopic $W$-type entangled coherent state using quantum memories in circuit QED. The memories considered here are nitrogen-vacancy center ensembles (NVEs), each located in a different cavity. This proposal does not require initially preparing each NVE in a coherent state instead of a ground state, which should significantly reduce its experimental difficulty. For most of the operation time, each cavity r…
We introduce an efficient, quasideterministic scheme to generate maximally entangled states of two atomic ensembles. The scheme is based on quantum nondemolition measurements of total atomic populations and on adiabatic quantum feedback conditioned by the measurements outputs. The high efficiency of the scheme is tested and confirmed numerically for ideal photodetection as well as in the presence of losses.
Semiconductor InAs/GaAs quantum dots grown by the Stranski-Krastanov method are among the leading candidates for the deterministic generation of polarization entangled photon pairs. Despite remarkable progress in the last twenty years, many challenges still remain for this material, such as the extremely low yield (<1% quantum dots can emit entangled photons), the low degree of entanglement, and the large wavelength distribution. Here we show that, with an emerging family of GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dots grown by droplet etching and nanohole infilling, it is possible to obtain a large ensemble (clo…
We propose a cavity-QED scheme for the controlled generation of sequences of entangled single-photon wavepackets. A photon is created inside a cavity via an active medium, such as an atom, and decays into the continuum of radiation modes outside the cavity(coupled, for example to an optical fiber). Subsequent wavepackets generated in this way behave as independent logical qubits. This and the possibility of producing maximally entangled multi-qubit states suggest many applications in quantum communication.
A critical requirement for diverse applications in Quantum Information Science is the capability to disseminate quantum resources over complex quantum networks. For example, the coherent distribution of entangled quantum states together with quantum memory to store these states can enable scalable architectures for quantum computation, communication, and metrology. As a significant step toward such possibilities, here we report observations of entanglement between two atomic ensembles located in distinct apparatuses on different tables. Quantum interference in the detection of a photon emitted…
We provide a scheme for the generation of entangled number states of Bose-Einstein condensates in multiple wells with cyclic pairwise connectivity. The condensate ground state in a multiple well trap can self-evolve, when phase engineered with specific initial phase differences between the neighboring wells, to a macroscopic superposition state with controllable entanglement -- to multiple well generalization of double well NOON states. We demonstrate through numerical simulations the creation of entangled states in three and four wells and then explore the creation of "larger" entangled state…
We propose a versatile and efficient method to generate a broad class of complex entangled states of many atoms via the detection of a single photon. For an atomic ensemble contained in a strongly coupled optical cavity illuminated by weak single- or multi-frequency light, the atom-light interaction entangles the frequency spectrum of a transmitted photon with the collective spin of the atomic ensemble. Simple time-resolved detection of the transmitted photon then projects the atomic ensemble into a desired pure entangled state. This method can be implemented with existing technology, yields h…
A protocol for remote state preparation is proposed for spin ensembles, where the aim is to prepare a state with a given set of spin expectation values on a remote spin ensemble using entanglement, local spin rotations, and measurements in the Fock basis. The spin ensembles could be realized by thermal atomic ensembles or spinor Bose-Einstein condensates. The protocol works beyond the Holstein-Primakoff approximation, such that spin expectation values for the full Bloch sphere can be prepared. The main practical obstacle is the preparation of the maximally entangled state between the spin ense…
