Tomography of the two qubit density matrix shared by Alice and Bob is an essential ingredient for guaranteeing an acceptable margin of confidentiality during the establishment of a secure fresh key through the Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) scheme. We show how the Singapore protocol for key distribution is optimal from this point of view, due to the fact that it is based on so called SIC POVM qubit tomography which allows the most accurate full tomographic reconstruction of an unknown density matrix on the basis of a restricted set of experimental data. We illustrate with the help of experimental data the deep connections that exist between SIC POVM tomography and discrete Wigner representations. We also emphasise the special role played by Bell states in this approach and propose a new protocol for Quantum Key Distribution during which a third party is able to concede or to deny A POSTERIORI to the authorized users the ability to build a fresh cryptographic key.
We consider a variant of the BB84 protocol for quantum cryptography, the prototype of tomographically incomplete protocols, where the key is generated by one-way communication rather than the usual two-way communication. Our analysis, backed by numerical evidence, establishes thresholds for eavesdropping attacks on the raw data and on the generated key at quantum bit error rates of 10% and 6.15%, respectively. Both thresholds are lower than the threshold for unconditional security in the standard BB84 protocol.
We present the experimental reconstruction of the Wigner function of an individual electronic spin qubit associated with a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond at room temperature. This spherical Wigner function contains the same information as the density matrix for arbitrary spin systems. As an example, we exactly characterize the quantum state of a single qubit undergoing a nearly pure dephasing process by Wigner function. The fidelities and purities during this process are extracted from the experimental reconstructed Wigner functions, whose dynamics agree with the theoretical predictio…
We study the tomography of propagators for spin systems in the context of finite-dimensional Wigner representations, which completely characterize and visualize operators using shapes assembled from linear combinations of spherical harmonics. The Wigner representation of a propagator can be experimentally recovered by measuring expectation values of rotated axial spherical tensor operators in an augmented system with an additional ancilla qubit. The methodology is experimentally demonstrated for standard one-qubit quantum gates using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. In particular, this…
Tomographic probability representation of multimode electromagnetic field states in the scheme of center-of-mass tomography is reviewed. Both connection of the field state Wigner function and observable Weyl symbols with the center-of-mass tomograms as well as connection of Grönewold kernel with the center-of-mass tomographic kernel determining the noncommutative product of the tomograms are obtained. The dual center-of-mass tomogram of the photon states are constructed and the dual tomographic kernel is obtained. The models of other generalised center-of-mass tomographies are discussed. Examp…
We introduce an efficient method to reconstruct the Wigner function of many-mode continuous variable systems. It is based on convex optimization with semidefinite programs, and also includes a version of the maximum entropy principle, in order to yield unbiased states. A key ingredient of the proposed approach is the representation of the state in a truncated Fock basis. As a bonus, the discrete finite representation allows to easily quantify the entanglement.
A protocol is provided to reconstruct the Wigner function for the motional state of a trapped ion via fluorescence detection on another ion in the same trap. This "sympathetic tomography" of a dark ion without optical transitions suitable for state measurements is based on the mapping of its motional state onto one of the collective modes of the ion pair. The quantum state of this vibrational eigenmode is subsequently measured through sideband excitation of the bright ion. Physical processes to implement the desired state transfer and read-out are derived, and the accomplishment of the scheme …
We study the tomography of multispin quantum states in the context of finite-dimensional Wigner representations. An arbitrary operator can be completely characterized and visualized using multiple shapes assembled from linear combinations of spherical harmonics [A. Garon, R. Zeier, and S. J. Glaser, Phys. Rev. A 91, 042122 (2015)]. We develop a general methodology to experimentally recover these shapes by measuring expectation values of rotated axial spherical tensor operators and provide an interpretation in terms of fictitious multipole potentials. Our approach is experimentally demonstrated…
We study different techniques that allow us to gain complete knowledge about an unknown quantum state, e.g. to perform full tomography of this state. We focus on two apparently simple cases, full tomography of one and two qubit systems. We analyze and compare those techniques according to two figures of merit. Our first criterion is the minimisation of the redundancy of the data acquired during the tomographic process. In the case of two-qubits tomography, we also analyze this process from the point of view of factorisability, so to say we analyze the possibility to realise the tomographic pro…
A recurring problem in quantum mechanics is to estimate either the state of a quantum system or the measurement operator applied to it. If we wish to estimate both, then the difficulty is that the state and the measurement always appear together: to estimate the state, we must use a measurement; to estimate the measurement operator, we must use a state. The data of such quantum estimation experiments come in the form of measurement frequencies. Ideally, the measured average frequencies can be attributed to an average state and an average measurement operator. If this is not the case, we have c…
We present a protocol for quantum cryptography in which the data obtained for mismatched bases are used in full for the purpose of quantum state tomography. Eavesdropping on the quantum channel is seriously impeded by requiring that the outcome of the tomography is consistent with unbiased noise in the channel. We study the incoherent eavesdropping attacks that are still permissible and establish under which conditions a secure cryptographic key can be generated. The whole analysis is carried out for channels that transmit quantum systems of any finite dimension.
Corresponding to optical Fresnel transformation characteristic of ray transfer matrix elements (A;B;C;D); AD-BC = 1, there exists Fresnel operator F(A;B;C;D) in quantum optics, we show that under the Fresnel transformation the pure position density |x><x| becomes the tomographic density |x>_rs,rs_<x|, which is just the Radon transform of the Wigner operator, i.e., F|x><x|F^(+) = |x>_rs,rs_<x|= \int dx'dp'delta[x-(Dx'-Bp')]*Wigner operator where s, r are the complex-value expression of (A;B;C;D). So the probability distribution for the Fresnel quadrature phase is the tomography (Radon transform…
The Wigner quasiprobability distribution of a narrowband single-photon state was reconstructed by quantum state tomography using photon-number-resolving measurements with transition-edge sensors (TES) at system efficiency 58(2)%. This method makes no assumptions on the nature of the measured state, save for the limitation on photon flux imposed by the TES. Negativity of the Wigner function was observed in the raw data without any inference or correction for decoherence.
An analysis of the homodyne tomography process that is often used to determine the Wigner functions of quantum optical states is performed to consider the effects of the spatiotemporal degrees of freedom. The homodyne tomography process removes those parts of the input state that are not associated with the mode of the local oscillator by tracing out those degrees of freedom. Using a functional approach to incorporate all the spatiotemporal degrees of freedom, we find that this reduction in the degrees of freedom introduces distortions in the observed Wigner function. The analysis also shows h…
By realizing a quantum cryptography system based on polarization entangled photon pairs we establish highly secure keys, because a single photon source is approximated and the inherent randomness of quantum measurements is exploited. We implement a novel key distribution scheme using Wigner's inequality to test the security of the quantum channel, and, alternatively, realize a variant of the BB84 protocol. Our system has two completely independent users separated by 360 m, and generates raw keys at rates of 400 - 800 bits/second with bit error rates arround 3 percent.
We present and demonstrate a method for optical homodyne tomography based on the inverse Radon transform. Different from the usual filtered back-projection algorithm, this method uses an appropriate polynomial series to expand the Wigner function and the marginal distribution and discretize Fourier space. We show that this technique solves most technical difficulties encountered with kernel deconvolution based methods and reconstructs overall better and smoother Wigner functions. We also give estimators of the reconstruction errors for both methods and show improvement in noise handling proper…
The analysis of wave-packet dynamics may be greatly simplified when viewed in phase-space. While harmonic oscillators are often used as a convenient platform to study wave-packets, arbitrary state preparation in these systems is more challenging. Here, we demonstrate a direct measurement of the Wigner distribution of complex photon states in an anharmonic oscillator - a superconducting phase circuit, biased in the small anharmonicity regime. We test our method on both non-classical states composed of two energy eigenstates and on the dynamics of a phase-locked wavepacket. This method requires …
I present a novel algorithm for reconstructing the Wigner function from homodyne statistics. The proposed method, based on maximum-likelihood estimation, is capable of compensating for detection losses in a numerically stable way.
Optical homodyne tomography is discussed in the context of classical image processing. Analogies between these two fields are traced and used to formulate an iterative numerical algorithm for reconstructing the Wigner function from homodyne statistics.
A theory of joint nonideal measurement of incompatible observables is used in order to assess the relative merits of quantum tomography and certain measurements of generalized observables, with respect to completeness of the obtained information. A method is studied for calculating a Wigner distribution from the joint probability distribution obtained in a joint measurement.
A new reconstruction method for Wigner function is reported for quantum tomography based on compressed sensing. By analogy with computed tomography, Wigner functions for some quantum states can be reconstructed with less measurements utilizing this compressed sensing based method.
This paper presents a practical method of quantum tomography for decoding the state of photons in a multistage cryptography protocol. This method works if the polarization angles are defined on a fixed plane, as is assumed in several quantum cryptography protocols. We show if there are 2m polarization angles in a fixed plane, we need m number of filters and m2 number of photons through each filter.
In quantum optics, the quantum state of a light beam is represented through the Wigner function, a density on $\mathbb R^2$ which may take negative values but must respect intrinsic positivity constraints imposed by quantum physics. In the framework of noisy quantum homodyne tomography with efficiency parameter $1/2 < η\leq 1$, we study the theoretical performance of a kernel estimator of the Wigner function. We prove that it is minimax efficient, up to a logarithmic factor in the sample size, for the $\mathbb L_\infty$-risk over a class of infinitely differentiable. We compute also the lower …
We reconstruct the polarization sector of a bright polarization squeezed beam starting from a complete set of Stokes measurements. Given the symmetry that underlies the polarization structure of quantum fields, we use the unique SU(2) Wigner distribution to represent states. In the limit of localized and bright states, the Wigner function can be approximated by an inverse three-dimensional Radon transform. We compare this direct reconstruction with the results of a maximum likelihood estimation, finding an excellent agreement.
In this work we have explored few tools in Quantum State Tomography for Continuous Variable Systems. The concept of quantum states in phase space representation is introduced in a simple manner by using a few statistical concepts. Unlike most texts of Quantum information in which the Wigner function for a single mode is often more used, in this text the multi-modes state Wigner function is also approached. Our numerical investigations indicate that the reconstructed method using back-projection add some error due the choice of cutoff frequency, therefore it is necessary to use data post-proces…
Similar in spirit to the preceding work [Opt. Commun. 282 (2009) 3734] where the relation between optical Fresnel transformation and quantum tomography is revealed, we study this kind of relationship in the two-mode entangled case. We show that under the two-mode Fresnel transformation the bipartite entangled state density |eta><eta| becomes density operator F_2|eta><eta|F_2 ^{dag}=|eta>_{r,s}<eta|, which is just the Radon transform of the two-mode Wigner operator (sigma,gama) in entangled form, where F_2 is an two-mode Fresnel operator in quantum optics, and s,r are the complex-value expressi…
The nonnegativity of the density operator of a state is faithfully coded in its Wigner distribution, and this places constraints on the moments of the Wigner distribution. These constraints are presented in a canonically invariant form which is both concise and explicit. Since the conventional uncertainty principle is such a constraint on the first and second moments, our result constitutes a generalization of the same to all orders. Possible application in quantum state reconstruction using optical homodyne tomography is noted.
We present a continuous variable tomography scheme that reconstructs the Husimi Q-function (Wigner function) by Lagrange interpolation, using measurements of the Q-function (Wigner function) at the Padua points, the optimal sampling points for two dimensional reconstruction. Our approach drastically reduces the number of measurements required compared to using equidistant points on a regular grid, although reanalysis of such experiments is possible. The reconstruction algorithm produces a reconstructed function with exponentially decreasing error and quasi-linear runtime in the number of Padua…
Flow-based Phase-space Tomography of Continuous-variable Quantum States
Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）；Stanford University（斯坦福大学）；Tufts University（塔夫茨大学）；University of California, Los Angeles（加州大学洛杉矶分校）；Tsinghua University（清华大学）
Photon-number-revolving (PNR) detection allows the direct measurement of the Wigner quasiprobability distribution of an optical mode without the need for numerically processing an inverse Radon transform [K. Banaszek and K. Wódkiewicz, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 4344 (1996)]. In this work, we reproduced the seminal experiment of Banaszek et al. [Phys. Rev. A 60, 674 (1999)] of quantum tomography of a pure coherent state, and of a statistical mixture thereof, and extended it to the more general case of photon fluxes with much more than one photon per detection time. This was made possible by the use …
The security of a cryptographic key that is generated by communication through a noisy quantum channel relies on the ability to distill a shorter secure key sequence from a longer insecure one. We show that -- for protocols that use quantum channels of any dimension and completely characterize them by state tomography -- the noise threshold for classical advantage distillation is substantially lower than the threshold for quantum entanglement distillation because the eavesdropper can perform powerful coherent attacks. The earlier claims that the two noise thresholds are identical, which were b…
We propose a method for characterizing a photodetector by directly reconstructing the Wigner functions of the detector's Positive-Operator-Value-Measure (POVM) elements. This method extends the works of S. Wallentowitz and Vogel [Phys. Rev. A 53, 4528 (1996)] and Banaszek and Wódkiewicz [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 4344 (1996)] for quantum state tomography via weak-field homodyne technique to characterize quantum detectors. The scheme uses displaced thermal mixtures as probes to the detector and reconstructs the Wigner function of the photodetector POVM elements from its outcome statistics. In order …
We present efficient circuits that can be used for the phase space tomography of quantum states. The circuits evaluate individual values or selected averages of the Wigner, Kirkwood and Husimi distributions. These quantum gate arrays can be programmed by initializing appropriate computational states. The Husimi circuit relies on a subroutine that is also interesting in its own right: the efficient preparation of a coherent state, which is the ground state of the Harper Hamiltonian.
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a quantum state tomography protocol that generalizes the Wallentowitz-Vogel-Banaszek-Wódkiewicz point-by-point Wigner function reconstruction. The full density operator of an arbitrary quantum state is efficiently reconstructed in the Fock basis, using semidefinite programming, after interference with a small set of calibrated coherent states. This new protocol is resource- and computationally efficient, is robust against noise, does not rely on approximate state displacements, and ensures the physicality of results.
We estimate the quantum state of a light beam from results of quantum homodyne measurements performed on identically prepared quantum systems. The state is represented through the Wigner function, a generalized probability density on $\mathbb{R}^2$ which may take negative values and must respect intrinsic positivity constraints imposed by quantum physics. The effect of the losses due to detection inefficiencies, which are always present in a real experiment, is the addition to the tomographic data of independent Gaussian noise. We construct a kernel estimator for the Wigner function, prove tha…
A bipartite quantum state is tomographically faithful when it can be used as an input of a quantum operation acting on one of the two quantum systems, such that the joint output state carries a complete information about the operation itself. Tomographically faithful states are a necessary ingredient for tomography of quantum operations and for complete quantum calibration of measuring apparatuses. In this paper we provide a complete classification of such states for continuous variables in terms of the Wigner function of the state. For two-mode Gaussian states faithfulness simply resorts to c…
Self-calibrating quantum state tomography aims at reconstructing the unknown quantum state and certain properties of the measurement devices from the same data. Since the estimates of the state and device parameters come from the same data, one should employ a joint estimation scheme, including the construction and reporting of joint state-device error regions to quantify uncertainty. We explain how to do this naturally within the framework of optimal error regions. As an illustrative example, we apply our procedure to the double-crosshair measurement of the BB84 scenario in quantum cryptograp…
For the visualization of quantum states, the approach based on Wigner functions can be very effective. Homodyne detection has been extensively used to obtain the density matrix, Wigner functions and tomographic reconstructions of optical fields for many thermal, coherent or squeezed states. Here, we use time-domain optical homodyne tomography for the quantum state recognition and reconstruction of the femtosecond optical field from a nonequilibrium superradiant coherent electron-hole state formed in a semiconductor laser structure. We observe severe deviations from the Poissonian statistics of…
The two-dimensional Radon transform of the Wigner quasiprobability is introduced in canonical form and the functions playing a role in its inversion are discussed. The transformation properties of this Radon transform with respect to displacement and squeezing of states are studied and it is shown that the last is equivalent to a symplectic transformation of the variables of the Radon transform with the contragredient matrix to the transformation of the variables in the Wigner quasiprobability. The reconstruction of the density operator from the Radon transform and the direct reconstruction of…
We present a continuous-variable experimental analysis of a two-photon Fock state of free-propagating light. This state is obtained from a pulsed non-degenerate parametric amplifier, which produces two intensity-correlated twin beams. Counting two photons in one beam projects the other beam in the desired two-photon Fock state, which is analyzed by using a pulsed homodyne detection. The Wigner function of the measured state is clearly negative. We developed a detailed analytic model which allows a fast and efficient analysis of the experimental results.
Invertible maps from operators of quantum obvservables onto functions of c-number arguments and their associative products are first assessed. Different types of maps like Weyl-Wigner-Stratonovich map and s-ordered quasidistribution are discussed. The recently introduced symplectic tomography map of observables (tomograms) related to the Heisenberg-Weyl group is shown to belong to the standard framework of the maps from quantum observables onto the c-number functions. The star-product for symbols of the quantum-observable for each one of the maps (including the tomographic map) and explicit re…
By means of a new mod(N)-invariant operator basis, s-parametrized phase-space functions associated with bounded operators in a finite-dimensional Hilbert space are introduced in the context of the extended Cahill-Glauber formalism, and their properties are discussed in details. The discrete Glauber-Sudarshan, Wigner, and Husimi functions emerge from this formalism as specific cases of s-parametrized phase-space functions where, in particular, a hierarchical process among them is promptly established. In addition, a phase-space description of quantum tomography and quantum teleportation is pres…
The characterization of quantum features in large Hilbert spaces is a crucial requirement for testing quantum protocols. In the continuous variables encoding, quantum homodyne tomography requires an amount of measurements that increases exponentially with the number of involved modes, which practically makes the protocol intractable even with few modes. Here we introduce a new technique, based on a machine learning protocol with artificial Neural Networks, that allows to directly detect negativity of the Wigner function for multimode quantum states. We test the procedure on a whole class of nu…
Wigner and Husimi quasi-distributions, owing to their functional regularity, give the two archetypal and equivalent representations of all observable-parameters in continuous-variable quantum information. Balanced homodyning and heterodyning that correspond to their associated sampling procedures, on the other hand, fare very differently concerning their state or parameter reconstruction accuracies. We present a general theory of a now-known fact that heterodyning can be tomographically more powerful than balanced homodyning to many interesting classes of single-mode quantum states, and discus…
We calculate the Wigner quasiprobability distribution function of quantum elliptical vortex in elliptical beam (EEV), produced by coupling squeezed coherent states of two modes. The coupling between the two modes is performed by using beam splitter (BS) or a dual channel directional coupler (DCDC). The quantum interference due to the coupling between the two modes promises the generation of controlled entanglement for quantum computation and quantum tomography.
Multipartite entanglement has been widely regarded as key resources in distributed quantum computing, for instance, multi-party cryptography, measurement based quantum computing, quantum algorithms. It also plays a fundamental role in quantum phase transitions, even responsible for transport efficiency in biological systems. Certifying multipartite entanglement is generally a fundamental task. Since an $N$ qubit state is parameterized by $4^N-1$ real numbers, one is interested to design a measurement setup that reveals multipartite entanglement with as little effort as possible, at least witho…
We consider two-way continuous-variable quantum key distribution, studying its security against general eavesdropping strategies. Assuming the asymptotic limit of many signals exchanged, we prove that two-way Gaussian protocols are immune to coherent attacks. More precisely we show the general superadditivity of the two-way security thresholds, which are proven to be higher than the corresponding one-way counterparts in all cases. We perform the security analysis first reducing the general eavesdropping to a two-mode coherent Gaussian attack, and then showing that the superadditivity is achiev…
Time of flight is an intuitive way to determine the velocity of particles and lies at the heart of many capabilities ranging from mass spectrometry to fluid flow measurements. Here we show time-of-flight imaging can realize tomography of a quantum state of motion of a single trapped atom. Tomography of motion requires studying the phase space spanned by both position and momentum. By combining time-of-flight imaging with coherent evolution of the atom in an optical tweezer trap, we are able to access arbitrary quadratures in phase space without relying on coupling to a spin degree of freedom. …
We obtain sufficient conditions on kernels of quantum states under which Wigner functions, optical quantum tomograms and linking their formulas are correctly defined. Our approach is based upon the Sobolev embedding theorem. The transition probability formula and the fractional Fourier transform are discussed in this framework.
Using tomographic reconstruction we determine the complete internuclear quantum state, represented by the Wigner function, of a dissociating I2 molecule based on femtosecond time resolved position and momentum distributions of the atomic fragments. The experimental data are recorded by timed ionization of the photofragments with an intense 20 fs laser pulse. Our reconstruction method, which relies on Jaynes' maximum entropy principle, will also be applicable to time resolved position or momentum data obtained with other experimental techniques.
