We theoretically study the angular displacements estimation based on a modified Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI), in which two optical parametric amplifiers (PAs) are introduced into two arms of the standard MZI, respectively. The employment of PAs can both squeeze the shot noise and amplify the photon number inside the interferometer. When the unknown angular displacements are introduced to both arms, we derive the multiparameter quantum Cramér-Rao bound (QCRB) using the quantum Fisher information matrix approach, and the bound of angular displacements difference between the two arms is compared with the sensitivity of angular displacement using the intensity detection. On the other hand, in the case where the unknown angular displacement is in only one arm, we give the sensitivity of angular displacement using the method of homodyne detection. It can surpass the standard quantum limit (SQL) and approach the single parameter QCRB. Finally, the effect of photon losses on sensitivity is discussed.
It is shown that 100% squeezed output can be produced in the resonance fluorescence from a coherently driven two-level atom interacting with a squeezed vacuum. This is only possible for $N=1/8$ squeezed input, and is associated with a pure atomic state, i.e., a completely polarized state. The quadrature for which optimal squeezing occurs depends on the squeezing phase $Φ,$ the Rabi frequency $Ω,$ and the atomic detuning $Δ$. Pure states are described for arbitrary $Φ,$ not just $Φ=0$ or $π$ as in previous work. For small values of $N,$ there may be a greater degree of squeezing in the output f…
Loss and decoherence are a major problem in the transmission of non-classical states of light over large distances. It was recently shown that the effects of decoherence can be reduced by applying a probabilistic noiseless attenuator before transmitting a quantum state through a lossy channel, followed by probabilistic noiseless amplification (M. Micuda et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 180503 (2012)). Here we show that similar results can be obtained for certain kinds of macroscopic quantum states by squeezing the signal before transmission, followed by deterministic amplification and anti-squeezi…
Polarization squeezing is shown to occur in non-degenerate parametric amplification of coherent light and the degree of squeezing at interaction time $T$ can be as large as $1-e^{-2T}$. This gives $86.4\%$ polarization squeezing for $T=1$ and $98.2\%$ for $T=2$. One simple case when this occurs is on taking initially plane polarized light having equal amplitudes in the two modes that finally has equal intensities of two circular polarizations. This suggest the experimental settings of parameters to achieve this extent of polarization squeezing in coherent light.
Nonlinear forces allow motion of a mechanical oscillator to be squeezed below the zero-point motion. Of existing methods, mechanical parametric amplification is relatively accessible, but previously thought to be limited to 3dB of squeezing in the steady state. We consider the effect of applying continuous weak measurement and feedback to this system. If the parametric drive is optimally detuned from resonance, correlations between the quadratures of motion allow unlimited steady-state squeezing. Compared to back-action evasion, we demonstrate that the measurement strength, temperature and eff…
We study polarization squeezing of a light beam initially in the coherent state using the nonlinear interaction hamiltonian $ H=k\big(\hat a_{x}^{\dagger2}+{\hat a_{x}}^2\big)$. For the degree of polarization squeezing, we use a definition written in the final form by the authors and also used in earlier papers. We find that the polarization squeezing can be very high and the degree of polarization squeezing can be less than unity by a very small amount. We achieve the polarization squeezing even for very low beam intensity under some conditions involving phase angles in the polarization modes…
We present a quantum theory of nondegenerate phase-sensitive parametric amplification in a chi^3 nonlinear medium. The non-zero response time of the Kerr chi^3 nonlinearity determines the quantum-limited noise figure of chi^3 parametric amplification, as well as the limit on quadrature squeezing. This non-zero response time of the nonlinearity requires coupling of the parametric process to a molecular-vibration phonon bath, causing the addition of excess noise through spontaneous Raman scattering. We present analytical expressions for the quantum-limited noise figure of frequency non-degenerat…
We consider a hypothesis testing problem for displacement parameters of n independent copies of an m-mode squeezed quantum Gaussian state whose mixture parameter is known. Given n>1, we construct a quantum measurement as a test using an observable which is invariant by n-fold tensor product of any m-mode squeezing operator. For a pure state case, we calculate the type II error probability of this test. We compare this test with a Hotelling's T-squared test which is based on heterodyne measurements.
Phase shifts induced by the Kerr effect are usually very small at the single-photon level. We propose two circuits for enhancing the cross-Kerr phase shift by applying one- and two-mode quadrature squeezing operators. Our results are based on the vector coherent state theory and can be implemented by physical operations satisfying the commutation relations for generators of the generalized special unitary group SU(1,1). While the proposed methods could be useful for the realization of quantum optical entangling gates based on Kerr nonlinear media at the single-photon level, they also indicate …
It has been predicted and experimentally demonstrated that by injecting squeezed light into an optomechanical device it is possible to enhance the precision of a position measurement. Here, we present a fundamentally different approach where the squeezing is created directly inside the cavity by a nonlinear medium. Counterintuitively, the enhancement of the signal to noise ratio works by de-amplifying precisely the quadrature that is sensitive to the mechanical motion without losing quantum information. This enhancement works for systems with a weak optomechanical coupling and/or strong mechan…
High precision interferometers are the building blocks of precision metrology and the ultimate interferometric sensitivity is limited by the quantum noise. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a compact quantum interferometer involving two optical parametric amplifiers and the squeezed states generated within the interferometer are directly used for the phase-sensing quantum state. By both squeezing shot noise and amplifying phase-sensing intensity the sensitivity improvement of $4.86\pm 0.24$ dB beyond the standard quantum limit is deterministically realized and a minimum detectable…
We study the problem of joint estimation of real squeezing and amplitude of the radiation field, deriving the measurement that maximizes the probability density of detecting the true value of the unknown parameters. More generally, we provide a solution for the problem of estimating the unknown unitary action of a nonunimodular group in the maximum likelihood approach. Remarkably, in this case the optimal measurements do not coincide with the so called square-root measurements. In the case of squeezing and displacement we analyze in detail the sensitivity of estimation for coherent states and …
We consider an optomechanical cavity with a movable end-mirror as a quantum mechanical oscillator (MO) containing an interacting cigar-shaped Bose-Eisenstein condensate (BEC). It is assumed that both the MO and the BEC interact with the radiation pressure of the cavity field in the red-detuned and weak coupling regimes while the two-body atomic collisions frequency of the BEC and the mechanical spring coefficient of the MO are coherently modulated. By analyzing the scattering matrix we find that a frequency-dependent squeezing is induced to the three subsystems only due to the coherent modulat…
We theoretically investigate the creation of squeezed states of a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) trapped in a magnetic double well potential. The number or phase squeezed states are created by modulating the tunnel coupling between the two wells periodically with twice the Josephson frequency, i.e., through parametric amplification. Simulations are performed with the multi configurational Hartree method for bosons (MCTDHB). We employ optimal control theory to bring the condensate to a complete halt at a final time, thus creating a highly squeezed state (squeezing factor of 0.12, $ξ_S^2=-18$ dB…
We investigate entanglement concentration of continuous-variable Gaussian states by local single-photon subtractions combined with local Gaussian operations. We first analyze the local squeezing-enhanced entanglement concentration protocol proposed very recently by Zhang and van Loock [e-print: arXiv:1103.4500 (2011)] and discuss the mechanism by which local squeezing before photon subtraction helps to increase the entanglement of the output state of the protocol. We next show that a similar entanglement improvement can be achieved by using local coherent displacements instead of single-mode s…
Realization of strong coupling between two different quantum systems is important for fast transferring quantum information between them, but its implementation is difficult in some hybrid quantum systems. Here we propose a scheme to enhance the coupling strength between a single nitrogen-vacancy center and a superconducting circuit via squeezing. The main recipe of our scheme is to construct a unitary squeezing transformation by directly tuning the specifically-designed superconducting circuit. Using the experimentally accessible parameters of the circuit, we find that the coupling strength c…
We report on the use of parametric excitation to coherently manipulate the collective spin state of an atomic vapour at room temperature. Signatures of the parametric excitation are detected in the ground-state spin evolution. These include the excitation spectrum of the atomic coherences, which contains resonances at frequencies characteristic of the parametric process. The amplitudes of the signal quadratures show amplification and attenuation, and their noise distribution is characterized by a strong asymmetry, similarly to those observed in mechanical oscillators. The parametric excitation…
We propose an implementation of the parametric amplification of an arbitrary radiation-field state previously prepared in a high-Q cavity. This nonlinear process is accomplished through the dispersive interactions of a single three-level atom (fundamental |g>, intermediate |i>, and excited |e> levels) simultaneously with i) a classical driving field and ii) a previously prepared cavity mode whose state we wish to squeeze. We show that, in the adiabatic approximantion, the preparation of the initial atomic state in the intermediate level |i> becomes crucial for obtaing the degenerated parametri…
Generalized squeezing rotating-wave approximation (GSRWA) is proposed by employing both the displacement and the squeezing transformations. A solvable Hamiltonian is reformulated in the same form as the ordinary RWA ones. For a qubit coupled to oscillators experiment, a well-defined Schrödinger-cat-like entangled state is given by the displaced-squeezed oscillator state instead of the original displaced state. For the isotropic Rabi case, the mean photon number and the ground-state energy are expressed analytically with additional squeezing terms, exhibiting a substantial improvement of the GS…
We propose an experimentally feasible method for enhancing the atom-field coupling as well as the ratio between this coupling and dissipation (i.e., cooperativity) of two atoms in an optical cavity. Our method also enables the generation of steady-state nearly-maximal quantum entanglement. Our approach exploits optical parametric amplification to exponentially enhance the atom-cavity interaction and, hence, the cooperativity of the system, with the squeezing-induced fluctuation noise being completely eliminated. Thus, an effective cooperativity much larger than $100$ can be achieved even for m…
Squeezing of the electromagnetic vacuum is an essential metrological technique used to reduce quantum noise in applications spanning gravitational wave detection, biological microscopy, and quantum information science. In superconducting circuits, the resonator-based Josephson-junction parametric amplifiers conventionally used to generate squeezed microwaves are constrained by a narrow bandwidth and low dynamic range. In this work, we develop a dual-pump, broadband Josephson traveling-wave parametric amplifier that combines a phase-sensitive extinction ratio of 56 dB with single-mode squeezing…
Since a general Gaussian process is phase-sensitive, a stable phase reference is required to take advantage of this feature. When the reference is missing, either due to the volatile nature of the measured sample or the measurement's technical limitations, the resulting process appears as random in phase. Under this condition, we consider two single-mode Gaussian processes, displacement and squeezing. We show that these two can be efficiently estimated using photon number states and photon number resolving detectors. For separate estimation of displacement and squeezing, the practical estimati…
We derive fidelity benchmarks for the quantum storage and teleportation of squeezed states of continuous variable systems, for input ensembles where the degree of squeezing $s$ is fixed, no information about its orientation in phase space is given, and the distribution of phase space displacements is a Gaussian. In the limit where the latter becomes flat, we prove analytically that the maximal classical achievable fidelity (which is 1/2 without squeezing, for $s=1$) is given by $\sqrt{s}/(1+s)$, vanishing when the degree of squeezing diverges. For mixed states, as well as for general distribut…
We show theoretically and experimentally that single copy distillation of squeezing from continuous variable non-Gaussian states is possible using linear optics and conditional homodyne detection. A specific non-Gaussian noise source, corresponding to a random linear displacement, is investigated. Conditioning the signal on a tap measurement, we observe probabilistic recovery of squeezing.
We present a scheme for the amplification of Schrodinger cats that collapses two smaller states onto their constructive interference via a homodyne projection. We analyze the performance of the amplification in terms of fidelity and success rate when the input consists of either exact coherent state superpositions or of photon-subtracted squeezed vacua. The impact of imprecise homodyne detection and of impure squeezing is quantified. We also assess the scalability of iterated amplifications.
We extend the definition of generalized coherent states to include the case of time-dependent dispersion. We introduce a suitable operator providing displacement and dynamical rescaling from an arbitrary ground state. As a consequence, squeezing is naturally embedded in this framework, and its dynamics is ruled by the evolution equation for the dispersion. Our construction provides a displacement-operator method to obtain the squeezed states of arbitrary systems.
We analyze the amplification by the Aharonov-Albert-Vaidman weak quantum measurement on a Sagnac interferometer [P. B. Dixon et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 173601 (2009)] up to all orders of the coupling strength between the measured system and the measuring device. The amplifier transforms a small tilt of a mirror into a large transverse displacement of the laser beam. The conventional analysis has shown that the measured value is proportional to the weak value, so that the amplification can be made arbitrarily large in the cost of decreasing output laser intensity. It is shown that the measur…
The application of postselection to a weak quantum measurement leads to the phenomenon of weak values. Expressed in units of the measurement strength, the displacement of a quantum coherent measuring device is ordinarily bounded by the eigenspectrum of the measured observable. Postselection can enable an interference effect that moves the average displacement far outside this range, bringing practical benefits in certain situations. Employing the Fisher information metric, we argue that the amplified displacement offers no fundamental metrological advantage, due to the necessarily reduced prob…
A Josephson parametric amplifier (JPA) can create squeezed states of microwave light, lowering the noise associated with certain quantum measurements. We experimentally study how the JPA's pump influences the phase-sensitive amplification and deamplification of a coherent tone's amplitude when that amplitude is commensurate with vacuum fluctuations. We predict and demonstrate that by operating the JPA with a pump power greater than the value that maximizes gain, the amplifier distortion is reduced and consequently squeezing is improved. Optimizing the JPA's operation in this fashion, we direct…
A continuous-variable analog of the Deutsch's distillation protocol locally operating with two copies of the same Gaussian state is suggested. Irrespectively of the impossibility of Gaussian state distillation, we reveal that this protocol is able to perform a squeezing concentration of the Gaussian states with {\em unknown} displacement. Since this operation cannot be implemented using only single copy of the state, it is a new application of the distillation protocol which utilizes two copies of the same Gaussian state.
We revisit the scheme of single-photon weak-coupling optomechanics using post-selection, proposed by Pepper, Ghobadi, Jeffrey, Simon and Bouwmeester [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 023601 (2012)], by analyzing the exact solution of the dynamical evolution. Positive and negative amplification effects of the displacement of the mirror's position can be generated when the Kerr phase is considered. This effect occurs when the post-selected state of the photon is orthogonal to the initial state, which can not be explained by the usual weak measurement results. The amplification effect can be further modulat…
Single-mode Josephson junction-based parametric amplifiers are often modeled as perfect amplifiers and squeezers. We show that, in practice, the gain, quantum efficiency, and output field squeezing of these devices are limited by usually neglected higher-order corrections to the idealized model. To arrive at this result, we derive the leading corrections to the lumped-element Josephson parametric amplifier of three common pumping schemes: monochromatic current pump, bichromatic current pump, and monochromatic flux pump. We show that the leading correction for the last two schemes is a single K…
Quantum squeezing of mechanical resonator is important for studying the macroscopic quantum effects and the precision metrology of weak forces. Here we give a theoretical study of a hybrid atom-optomechanical system in which the steady-state squeezing of the mechanical resonator can be generated via the mechanical nonlinearity and cavity cooling process. The validity of the scheme is assessed by simulating the steady-state variance of the mechanical displacement quadrature numerically. The scheme is robust against dissipation of the optical cavity, and the steady-state squeezing can be effecti…
We examine the quantum states produced through parametric amplification with internal quantum noise. The internal diffusion arises by coupling both modes of light to a reservoir for the duration of the interaction time. The Wigner function for the diffused two-mode squeezed state is calculated. The nonlocality, separability, and purity of these quantum states of light are discussed. In addition, we conclude by studying the nonlocality of two other continuous variable states: the Werner state and the phase-diffused state for two light modes.
Optical satellite links open up new prospects for realizing quantum physical experiments over unprecedented length scales. We analyze and affirm the feasibility of detecting quantum squeezing in an optical mode with homodyne detection of only one bit resolution, as is found in satellites already in orbit. We show experimentally that, in combination with a coherent displacement, a binary homodyne detector can still detect quantum squeezing efficiently even under high loss. The sample overhead in comparison to non-discretized homodyne detection is merely a factor of 3.3.
Improving coherence is a fundamental challenge in quantum simulation and sensing experiments with trapped ions. Here we discuss, experimentally demonstrate, and estimate the potential impacts of two different protocols that enhance, through motional parametric excitation, the coherent spin-motion coupling of ions obtained with a spin-dependent force. The experiments are performed on 2D crystal arrays of approximately one hundred $^9$Be$^+$ ions confined in a Penning trap. By modulating the trapping potential at close to twice the center-of-mass mode frequency, we squeeze the motional mode and …
A process which strongly amplifies both quadrature amplitudes of an oscillatory signal necessarily adds noise. Alternatively, if the information in one quadrature is lost in phase-sensitive amplification, it is possible to completely reconstruct the other quadrature. Here we demonstrate such a nearly perfect phase-sensitive measurement using a cavity optomechanical scheme, characterized by an extremely small noise less than 0.2 quanta. We also observe microwave radiation strongly squeezed by 8 dB below vacuum. A source of bright squeezed microwaves opens up applications in manipulations of qua…
We show for the first time that it is possible to realize laser beam focusing at the few-photon level in the four-wave-mixing process, and at the same time, reducing the quantum uncertainty in width. The reduction in quantum uncertainty results directly from the strong suppression of local intensity fluctuations. This surprising effect of simultaneous focusing and reduction of width uncertainty is enabled by multi-spatial-mode squeezing, and is not possible via any classical optical approach or single-spatial-mode squeezing. Our results open promising possibilities for quantum-enhanced imaging…
Traveling wave parametric amplifiers (TWPAs) have recently emerged as essential tools for broadband near quantum-limited amplification. However, their use to generate microwave quantum states still misses an experimental demonstration. In this letter, we report operation of a TWPA as a source of two-mode squeezed microwave radiation. We demonstrate broadband entanglement generation between two modes separated by up to 400 MHz by measuring logarithmic negativity between 0.27 and 0.51 and collective quadrature squeezing below the vacuum limit between 1.5 and 2.1 dB. This work opens interesting p…
