We propose a scheme for entangling the motion of two massive objects in a hybrid electromechanical architecture. The entanglement is generated due to the interaction of two mechanical oscillators with a mediating superconducting qubit. We show that the generated macroscopic entangled states are non-Gaussian and its lifetime is limited by coherence time of the qubit. The entanglement is attainable in a wide range of parameters with appropriate control of the qubit. We confirm performance of our scheme by numerically solving the quantum optical master equation including sources of noise. The effect of imperfections, such as asymmetries in the coupling rates as well as mechanical thermal noise are studied and shown how they affect the amount and lifetime of the entangled state. Due to the nonlinear nature of the qubit, the initial Gaussian state of mechanical resonators evolves into a quasi-stationary non-Gaussian state, which is essential for universal quantum information processing in continuous variable systems. This work, therefore, provides the first step towards a universal continuous variable quantum network.
We propose a deterministic scheme for establishing hybrid Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) entanglement channel between a macroscopic mechanical oscillator and a magnon mode in a distant yttrium-iron-garnet (YIG) sphere across about ten gigahertz of frequency difference. The system consists of a driven electromechanical cavity which is unidirectionally coupled to a distant electromagnonical cavity inside which a YIG sphere is placed. We find that far beyond the sideband-resolved regime in the electromechanical subsystem, stationary phonon-magnon EPR entanglement can be achieved. This is realized …
We study arrays of mechanical oscillators in the quantum domain and demonstrate how the motions of distant oscillators can be entangled without the need for control of individual oscillators and without a direct interaction between them. These oscillators are thought of as being members of an array of nano-electromechanical resonators with a voltage being applicable between neighboring resonators. Sudden non-adiabatic switching of the interaction results in a squeezing of the states of the mechanical oscillators, leading to an entanglement transport in chains of mechanical oscillators. We disc…
The widespread availability of quantum entanglement with photons, in the guise of two-mode squeezed states, can be attributed to the phenomenon of parametric down-conversion. A reinterpretation of this effect with macroscopic mechanical objects can offer a route towards a purely mechanical entanglement and the unique possibility of probing the quantum mechanical nature of our everyday classical world. In spite of this prospect, mechanical two-mode squeezed states have remained elusive due to the inability to recreate the nonlinear interaction at the heart of this phenomenon in the mechanical d…
Schrödinger's thought experiment to prepare a cat in a superposition of both alive and dead states reveals profound consequences of quantum mechanics and has attracted enormous interests. Here we propose a straightforward method to create quantum superposition states of a living microorganism by putting a small cryopreserved bacterium on top of an electromechanical oscillator. Our proposal is based on recent developments that the center-of-mass oscillation of a 15-$μ$m-diameter aluminium membrane has been cooled to its quantum ground state [Nature 475: 359 (2011)], and entangled with a microwa…
We investigate the controllable generation of robust photon entanglement with a circuit cavity electromechanical system, consisting of two superconducting coplanar waveguide cavities (CPWC's) capacitively coupled by a nanoscale mechanical resonator (MR). We show that, with this electromechanical system, two-mode continuous-variable entanglement of cavity photons can be engineered deterministically either via coherent control on the dynamics of the system, or through a dissipative quantum dynamical process. The first scheme, operating in the strong coupling regime, explores the excitation of th…
Opto- and electromechanical systems offer an effective platform to test quantum theory and its predictions at macroscopic scales. To date, all experiments presuppose the validity of quantum mechanics, but could in principle be described by a hypothetical local statistical theory. Here we suggest a Bell test using the electromechanical Einstein-Podolski-Rosen entangled state recently generated by Palomaki et al., which would rule out any local and realistic explanation of the measured data without assuming the validity of quantum mechanics at macroscopic scales. It additionally provides a devic…
An enduring challenge for contemporary physics is to experimentally observe and control quantum behavior in macroscopic systems. We show that a single trapped atomic ion could be used to probe the quantum nature of a mesoscopic mechanical oscillator precooled to 4K, and furthermore, to cool the oscillator with high efficiency to its quantum ground state. The proposed experiment could be performed using currently available technology.
We propose a variational approach for computing the macroscopic entanglement in a many-body mixed state, based on entanglement witness operators, and compute the entanglement of formation (EoF), a mixed-state generalization of the entanglement entropy, in single- and two-channel Kondo systems at finite temperature. The thermal suppression of the EoF obeys power-law scaling at low temperature. The scaling exponent is halved from the single- to the two-channel system, which is attributed, using a bosonization method, to the non-Fermi liquid behavior of a Majorana fermion, a "half" of a complex f…
We study the significance of Photon/Phonons bunching and antibunching on the dynamics of the quantum entanglement in the presence of coupled PT-symmetry systems with balanced/unbalanced gain and loss. We suggest a hybrid electromechanical system to realize a strong and tunable coupling between a Coplanar-Waveguide (CPW) microwave cavity and a nanomechanical resonator (NAMR) via a superconducting Transmon qubit. The hybrid electromechanical system consists of a non-hermitian Hamiltonian with balanced/unbalanced gain and loss. The interplay between the quantum entanglement and the -symmetry syst…
We show that two groups of slow two-level atoms in a weak resonant laser field, are entangled. The considered groups can be separated by a macroscopic distance, and be parts of a larger atomic ensemble. In a dilute regime, for two very distant groups of atoms, in a plane wave laser beam, we determine the maximum attainable entanglement negativity, and a laser intensity below which they are certainly entangled. They both decrease with increasing distance between the two groups, but increase with enlarging groups sizes. As a consequence, for given laser intensity, far separated groups of atoms a…
The experimental observation of quantum phenomena in mechanical degrees of freedom is difficult, as the systems become linear towards low energies and the quantum limit, and thus reside in the correspondence limit. Here we investigate how to access quantum phenomena in flexural nanomechanical systems which are strongly deflected by a voltage. Near a metastable point, one can achieve a significant nonlinearity in the electromechanical potential at the scale of zero point energy. The system could then escape from the metastable state via macroscopic quantum tunneling (MQT). We consider two model…
Electromechanical systems currently offer a path to engineering quantum states of microwave and micromechanical modes that are of both fundamental and applied interest. Particularly desirable, but not yet observed, are mechanical states that exhibit entanglement, wherein non-classical correlations exist between distinct modes; squeezing, wherein the quantum uncertainty of an observable quantity is reduced below the standard quantum limit; and Schrödinger cats, wherein a single mode is cast in a quantum superposition of macroscopically distinct classical states. Also, while most investigations …
We present an experimentally implementable method to couple Josephson charge qubits and to generate and detect macroscopic entangled states. A large-junction superconducting quantum interference device is used in the qubit circuit for both coupling qubits and implementing the readout. Also, we explicitly show how to achieve a microwave-assisted macroscopic entanglement in the coupled-qubit system.
We consider the steady states of a harmonic oscillator coupled so strongly to a two-level system (a qubit) that the rotating wave approximation cannot be made. The Hamiltonian version of this model is known as the $E\otimesβ$ Jahn-Teller model. The semiclassical version of this system exhibits a fixed point bifurcation, which in the quantum model leads to a ground state with substantial entanglement between the oscillator and the qubit. We show that the dynamical bifurcation survives in a dissipative quantum description of the system, amidst an even richer bifurcation structure. We propose two…
We show that macroscopic thermodynamical properties - such as functions of internal energy and magnetization - can detect quantum entanglement in solids at nonzero temperatures in the thermodynamical limit. We identify the parameter regions (critical values of magnetic field and temperature) within which entanglement is witnessed by these thermodynamical quantities.
We elucidate the relationship between Schrödinger-cat-like macroscopicity and geometric entanglement, and argue that these quantities are not interchangeable. While both properties are lost due to decoherence, we show that macroscopicity is rare in uniform and in so-called random physical ensembles of pure quantum states, despite possibly large geometric entanglement. In contrast, permutation-symmetric pure states feature rather low geometric entanglement and strong and robust macroscopicity.
Recently, there have been several suggestions that weak Kerr nonlinearity can be used for generation of macroscopic superpositions and entanglement and for linear optics quantum computation. However, it is not immediately clear that this approach can overcome decoherence effects. Our numerical study in this paper shows that nonlinearity of weak strength could be useful for macroscopic entanglement generation and quantum gate operations in the presence of decoherence. We suggest specific values for real experiments based on our analysis. Our discussion shows that the generation of macroscopic e…
We show how the spatial macroscopic entanglement equivalent to the off diagonal long range order (ODLRO) implies the Meissner effect and flux quantisation for a superconductor. It is argued by analogy with superconductors that the Higgs field must also be entangled in the same way. Internal (spin) entanglement is shown to be irrelevant within this context, although it can of course also be computed.
Two quantum Macro-states and their Macroscopic Quantum Superpositions (MQS) localized in two far apart, space - like separated sites can be non-locally correlated by any entangled couple of single-particles having interacted in the past. This novel Macro - Macro paradigm is investigated on the basis of a recent study on an entangled Micro-Macro system involving N=10^5 particles. Crucial experimental issues as the violation of Bell's inequalities by the Macro - Macro system are considered.
We propose and analyse a practically implementable scheme to generate macroscopic entanglement of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a micro-magnetic trap magnetically coupled to a superconducting loop. We treat the superconducting loop in a quantum superposition of two different flux states coupled with the magnetic trap to generate macroscopic entanglement. Our scheme also provides a platform to realise interferometry of entangled atoms through the Bose-Einstein condensate and to explore physics at the quantum-classical interface.
We discuss the generation of a macroscopic entangled state in a single atom cavity-QED system. The three-level atom in a cascade configuration interacts dispersively with two classical coherent fields inside a doubly resonant cavity. We show that a macroscopic entangled state between these two cavity modes can be generated under large detuning conditions. The entanglement persists even under the presence of cavity losses.
What can we learn about entanglement between individual particles in macroscopic samples by observing only the collective properties of the ensembles? Using only a few experimentally feasible collective properties, we establish an entanglement measure between two samples of spin-1/2 particles (as representatives of two-dimensional quantum systems). This is a tight lower bound for the average entanglement between all pairs of spins in general and is equal to the average entanglement for a certain class of systems. We compute the entanglement measures for explicit examples and show how to genera…
We present a theoretical study of entanglement in ensembles consisting of an arbitrary number of particles. Multipartite entanglement criteria in terms of observables are formulated for a fixed number of particles as well as for systems with a fluctuating particle number. To access the quality of the verified entanglement, the operational measure of the entanglement visibility is introduced. As an example, we perform an analytical characterization of quantum systems composed of interacting harmonic oscillators and witness the entanglement via energy measurements. Our analysis shows that the de…
We investigate the lifetime of macroscopic entanglement under the influence of decoherence. For GHZ-type superposition states we find that the lifetime decreases with the size of the system (i.e. the number of independent degrees of freedom) and the effective number of subsystems that remain entangled decreases with time. For a class of other states (e.g. cluster states), however, we show that the lifetime of entanglement is independent of the size of the system.
Using two different criteria for continuous variable systems we demonstrated that pump and probe beams became quantum correlated in a situation of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency in a sample of Rb atoms. Our result combines two important features for practical implementations in the field of quantum information processing. Namely, we proved the existence of entanglement between two macroscopic light beams, and this entanglement is intrinsically associated to a strong coherence in an atomic medium.
We investigate macroscopic entanglement of quantum states in quantum computers, where we say a quantum state is entangled macroscopically if the state has superposition of macroscopically distinct states. The index $p$ of the macroscopic entanglement is calculated as a function of the step of the computation, for Grover's quantum search algorithm and Shor's factoring algorithm. It is found that whether macroscopically entangled states are used or not depends on the numbers and properties of the solutions to the problem to be solved. When the solutions are such that the problem becomes hard in …
It is possible to construct a classical, macroscopic system which has a mathematical structure that is exactly the same as that of a quantum mechanical system and which can be put into a state which is identical to quantum mechanical entanglement. This paper presents a simple example, including a way in which the system can be measured to violate Bell's inequalities. This classical simulation of a quantum system allows us to visualize entanglement and also helps us to see what aspects of quantum mechanical systems are truly nonclassical.
Can entanglement and the quantum behavior in physical systems survive at arbitrary high temperatures? In this Letter we show that this is the case for a electromagnetic field mode in an optical cavity with a movable mirror in a thermal state. We also identify two different dynamical regimes of generation of entanglement separated by a critical coupling strength.
Entanglement is a striking feature of quantum mechanics and an essential ingredient in most applications in quantum information. Typically, coupling of a system to an environment inhibits entanglement, particularly in macroscopic systems. Here we report on an experiment, where dissipation continuously generates entanglement between two macroscopic objects. This is achieved by engineering the dissipation using laser- and magnetic fields, and leads to robust event-ready entanglement maintained for 0.04s at room temperature. Our system consists of two ensembles containing about 10^{12} atoms and …
We show a general approach for detecting genuine multipartite entanglement (GME) and partial inseparability in many-body-systems by means of macroscopic observables (such as the energy) only. We show that the obtained criteria, the "GME gap" and "the k-entanglement gap", detect large areas of genuine multipartite entanglement and partial entanglement in typical many body states, which are not detected by other criteria. As genuine multipartite entanglement is a necessary property for several quantum information theoretic applications such as e.g. secret sharing or certain kinds of quantum comp…
We investigate entanglement properties of mixtures of short-range spin-s dimer coverings in lattices of arbitrary topology and dimension. We show that in one spacial dimension nearest neighbour entanglement exists for any spin $s$. Surprisingly, in higher spatial dimensions there is a threshold value of spin $s$ below which the nearest neighbour entanglement disappears. The traditional "classical" limit of large spin value corresponds to the highest nearest neighbour entanglement that we quantify using the negativity.
We show that the generation of entanglement of two heavily macroscopic mirrors with masses of up to several kilograms are feasible with state of the art techniques of high-precision laser interferometry. The basis of such a demonstration would be a Michelson interferometer with suspended mirrors and simultaneous homodyne detections at both interferometer output ports. We present the connection between the generation of entanglement and the Standard Quantum Limit (SQL) for a free mass. The SQL is a well-known reference limit in operating interferometers for gravitational-wave detection and prov…
This paper summarises the results of our research on macroscopic entanglement in spin systems and free Bosonic gases. We explain how entanglement can be observed using entanglement witnesses which are themselves constructed within the framework of thermodynamics and thus macroscopic observables. These thermodynamical entanglement witnesses result in bounds on macroscopic parameters of the system, such as the temperature, the energy or the susceptibility, below which entanglement must be present. The derived bounds indicate a relationship between the occurrence of entanglement and the establish…
The Pancharatnam phase deficit is defined as the difference between the Pancharat- nam phase acquired by the global system and the sum of the Pancharatnam phases acquired by subsystems during local unitary evolutions. We show that a non-zero value of the Pancharatnam phase deficit for a composite quantum system can be a signature of quantum entanglement. In the context of macroscopic quantum systems, we illustrate how the Pancharatnam phase deficit can be used to detect macroscopically entangled states. In particular, we use the Pancharatnam phase deficit to detect the entanglement for macrosc…
We show that if the ground state entanglement exceeds the total entropy of a given system, then this system is in an entangled state. This is a universal entanglement witness that applies to any physical system and yields a temperature below which we are certain to find some entanglement. Our witness is then applied to generic bosonic and fermionic many body systems to derive the corresponding "critical" temperatures that have a very broad validity.
We investigate entanglement properties of a recently introduced class of macroscopic quantum superpositions in two-mode mixed states. One of the tools we use in order to infer the entanglement in this non-Gaussian class of states is the power to entangle a qubit system. Our study reveals features which are hidden in a standard approach to entanglement investigation based on the uncertainty principle of the quadrature variables. We briefly describe the experimental setup corresponding to our theoretical scenario and a suitable modification of the protocol which makes our proposal realizable wit…
We present a scheme to entangle two magnon modes in two macroscopic yttrium-iron-garnet spheres. The two spheres are placed inside two microwave cavities, which are driven by a two-mode squeezed microwave field. By using the linear state-swap interaction between the cavity and the magnon mode in each cavity, the quantum correlation of the two driving fields is with high efficiency transferred to the two magnon modes. Considerable entanglement could be achieved under experimentally achievable conditions $g \gg κ_a \gg κ_m$, where $g$ is the cavity-magnon coupling rate and $κ_a$, $κ_m$ are the d…
We investigate entanglement between collective operators of two wave-packets of finite spectral bandwidth, in two different approximations of the Multimode Parametric-Down Conversion (MPDC) process: the pairwise and the one-to-all interaction patterns. For collective operators we choose the macroscopic amplitudes of each wave-packet defined by the Fourier Transform of their microscopic mode amplitudes. This approach intends, to respond to realistic experimental conditions, where measurements apparatuses may not resolve single microscopic mode amplitudes but rather the collective amplitude of t…
In this paper, we consider some frustrated spin models for which the ground states are known exactly. The concurrence, a measure of the amount of entanglement can be calculated exactly for entangled spin pairs. Quantum phase transitions involving macroscopic magnetization changes at critical values of the magnetic field are accompanied by macroscopic jumps in the (T=0) entanglement. A specific example is given in which magnetization plateaus give rise to a plateau structure in the amount of entanglement associated with nearest-neighbour bonds. We further show that macroscopic entanglement chan…
We theoretically study macroscopic entanglement between a magnetically trapped Bose-Einstein condensate and a superconducting loop. We treat the superconducting loop in a quantum superposition of two different flux states coupling with the magnetic trap to generate macroscopic entanglement. The scheme also provides a platform to investigate interferometry with an entangled Bose Einstein condensate and to explore physics at the quantum-classical interface.
Quantum entanglement between two or more bipartite entities is a core concept in quantum information areas limited to microscopic regimes directly governed by Heisenberg uncertainty principle via quantum superposition, resulting in nondeterministic and probabilistic quantum features. Such quantum features cannot be generated by classical means. Here, a pure classical method of on-demand entangled light-pair generation is presented in a macroscopic regime via basis randomness. This conflicting idea of conventional quantum mechanics invokes a fundamental question about both classicality and quan…
Entanglement between macroscopically populated states can easily be created by combining a single photon and a bright coherent state on a beam-splitter. Motivated by the simplicity of this technique, we report on a method using displacement operations in the phase space and basic photon detections to reveal such an entanglement. We demonstrate through preliminary experimental results, that this eminently feasible approach provides an attractive way for exploring entanglement at various scales, ranging from one to a thousand photons. This offers an instructive viewpoint to gain insight into the…
Displaced single-photon entanglement is a simple form of optical entanglement, obtained by sending a photon on a beamsplitter and subsequently applying a displacement operation. We show that it can generate, through a momentum transfer in the pulsed regime, an optomechanical entangled state involving macroscopically distinct mechanical components, even if the optomechanical system operates in the single-photon weak coupling regime. We discuss the experimental feasibility of this approach and show that it might open up a way for testing unconventional decoherence models.
The combination of different quantum systems may allow the exploration of the distinctive features of each system for the investigation of fundamental phenomena as well as for quantum technologies. In this work we consider a setup consisting of an atomic ensemble enclosed within a laser-driven optomechanical cavity, having the moving mirror further (capacitively) coupled to a low frequency LC circuit. This constitutes a four-partite optoelectromechanical quantum system containing three macroscopic quantum subsystems of a different nature, viz, the atomic ensemble, the massive mirror and the LC…
The question whether Quantum Mechanics describes all aspects of both the micro-world of elementary particles and living organisms adequately is still open. A Bell inequality test without locality and detection loopholes will deliver the answer when applied to macroscopic systems. Here we show that an experimentally feasible loophole-free Bell test is possible using only multi-photon polarization entanglement and linear optics. We apply a preselection protocol which produces genuine macroscopic superpositions and entanglement, thus eliminating postselection and dark counts. Such superpositions …
Macroscopic entanglement between two magnon modes via two-tone driving of a superconducting qubit
Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Micro-Nano Quantum Chips and Quantum Control, and School of Physics, Zhejiang University（浙江大学物理学院微纳量子芯片与量子控制浙江省重点实验室）；Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Manipulation and New Energy Materials, College of Physics and Energy, Fujian Normal University（福建师范大学物理与能源学院量子调控与新能源材料福建省重点实验室）；Fujian Provincial Engineering Technology Research Center of Solar Energy Conversion and Energy Storage（福建省太阳能转换与储能工程技术研究中心）
We propose a mechanism where high entanglement between very distant boundary spins is generated by suddenly connecting two long Kondo spin chains. We show that this procedure provides an efficient way to route entanglement between multiple distant sites. We observe that the key features of the entanglement dynamics of the composite spin chain are remarkably well described using a simple model of two singlets, each formed by two spins. The proposed entanglement routing mechanism is a footprint of the emergence of a Kondo cloud in a Kondo system and can be engineered and observed in varied physi…
Prospects for reaching persistent entanglement between two spatially separated atomic Bose-Einstein condensates are outlined. The system set-up comprises of two condensates loaded in an optical lattice, which, in return, is confined within a high-Q optical resonator. The system is driven by an external laser that illuminates the atoms such that photons can scatter into the cavity. In the superradiant phase a cavity field is established and we show that the emerging cavity mediated interactions between the two condensates is capable of entangling them despite photon losses. This macroscopic ato…
One of the main ingredients in most quantum information protocols is a reliable source of two entangled systems. Such systems have been generated experimentally several years ago for light but has only in the past few years been demonstrated for atomic systems. None of these approaches however involve two atomic systems situated in separate environments. This is necessary for the creation of entanglement over arbitrary distances which is required for many quantum information protocols such as atomic teleportation. We present an experimental realization of such distant entanglement based on an …
We propose a correlation of local observables on many sites in macroscopic quantum systems. By measuring the correlation one can detect, if any, superposition of macroscopically distinct states, which we call macroscopic entanglement, in arbitrary quantum states that are (effectively) homogeneous. Using this property, we also propose an index of macroscopic entanglement.
Explaining how microscopic entities collectively produce macroscopic phenomena is a fundamental goal of many-body physics. Theory predicts that large-scale entanglement is responsible for exotic macroscopic phenomena, but observation of entangled particles in naturally occurring systems is extremely challenging. Synthetic quantum systems made of atoms in optical lattices have been con- structed with the goal of observing macroscopic quantum phenomena with single-atom resolution. Serious challenges remain in producing and detecting long-range quantum correlations in these systems, however. Here…
In the Schrödinger-cat gedanken experiment a cat is in a quantum superposition of two macroscopically distinct states, alive and dead.The paradoxical interpretation of quantum mechanics is that the cat is not in one state or the other, alive or dead, immediately prior to its measurement. Because of this apparent defiance of macroscopic reality, quantum superpositions of states macroscopically distinct have generated much interest. Here we address the issue of proving a contradiction with macroscopic reality objectively, through the testable predictions of quantum mechanics. We consider the pre…
We show that the optomechanical coupling between an optical cavity mode and the two movable cavity end mirrors is able to entangle two different macroscopic oscillation modes of the mirrors. This continuous variable entanglement is maintained by the light bouncing between the mirrors and is robust against thermal noise. In fact, it could be experimentally demonstrated using present technology.
