We propose a new scheme for quantum key distribution using macroscopic non-classical pulses of light having of the order 10^6 photons per pulse. Sub-shot-noise quantum correlation between the two polarization modes in a pulse gives the necessary sensitivity to eavesdropping that ensures the security of the protocol. We consider pulses of two-mode squeezed light generated by a type-II seeded parametric amplification process. We analyze the security of the system in terms of the effect of an eavesdropper on the bit error rates for the legitimate parties in the key distribution system. We also consider the effects of imperfect detectors and lossy channels on the security of the scheme.
In this paper, we propose a feasible scheme for generating the Schrödinger cat states of a macroscopic mechanical resonator in pulsed cavity optomechanics. Starting with cooling the mechanical oscillator to its ground state, a red and a blue pulses with different powers are simultaneously employed to drive the cavity to achieve squeezed mechanical states. Subsequently, a second red pulse is utilized to generate the macroscopic mechanical quantum superpositions, conditioned on the detection of cavity output photons. Finally, after being stored in the resonator for a period of time, the mechanic…
We review and compare several measures that identify quantum states that are "macroscopically quantum". These measures were initially formulated either for photonic systems or spin ensembles. Here, we compare them through a simple model which maps photonic states to spin ensembles. On the one hand, we reveal problems for some spin measures to handle correctly photonic states that typically are considered to be macroscopically quantum. On the other hand, we find significant similarities between other measures even though they were differently motivated.
In a macroscopic realm, in which photons are too many for being counted by any photon counting detector, photon statistics can be measured by using detectors simply endowed with linear response. We insert one of such detectors in a conventional photon-counting apparatus, which returns a voltage every time the detector responds to light by generating a number of elementary charges via its primary photo-detection process. We only assume that, when a single charge is photo-generated, the probability density of the voltages is a distribution that is narrow with respect to its mean value. Under thi…
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.
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…
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 show that quantum mechanics predicts a contradiction with local hidden variable theories for photon number measurements which have limited resolving power, to the point of imposing an uncertainty in the photon number result which is macroscopic in absolute terms. We show how this can be interpreted as a failure of a new premise, macroscopic local realism.
As a class of multipartite entangled states, the multipartite concatenated GHZ (C-GHZ) states remain superior stability under the influence of decoherence. We propose two scalable experimental realization of the multiphoton C-GHZ states based on the entanglers of multiphoton GHZ state. Given a $km$-photon GHZ state as an input state, if $m$ is odd, one can create a $km$-photon C-GHZ state. Also, generally, we design a scheme to prepare $km$-photon C-GHZ states from $km$ single-photon states by using $k$ entanglers of $m$-photon GHZ state and $k$ $m$-control Toffoli gates.
We investigate the multiphoton states generated by high-gain optical parametric amplification of a single injected photon, polarization encoded as a ''qubit''. The experiment configuration exploits the optimal phase-covariant cloning in the high gain regime. The interference fringe pattern showing the non local transfer of coherence between the injected qubit and the mesoscopic amplified output field involving up to 4000 photons has been investigated. A probabilistic new method to extract full information about the multiparticle output wavefunction has been implemented.
A deterministic photon-photon quantum-logic gate is a long-standing goal. Building such a gate becomes possible if a light pulse containing only one photon imprints a phase shift of $π$ onto another light field. Here we experimentally demonstrate the generation of such a $π$ phase shift with a single-photon pulse. A first light pulse containing less than one photon on average is stored in an atomic gas. Rydberg blockade combined with electromagnetically induced transparency creates a phase shift for a second light pulse which propagates through the medium. Postselected on the detection of a re…
The dependence of one- and two-photon characteristics of pulsed entangled two-photon fields generated in spontaneous parametric down-conversion on the pump-pulse properties (shape of the pump-pulse spectrum and its internal structure) is examined. It is shown that entangled two-photon fields with defined properties can be generated. A general relation between the spectra of the down-converted fields is established. As a special case interference of two partially overlapping pulsed two-photon fields is studied. Fourth-order interference pattern of entangled two-photon fields is investigated in …
Single-photon pulses cannot be generated on demand, due to incompatible requirements of positive frequencies and positive times. Resulting states therefore contain small probabilities for multiphotons. We derive upper and lower bounds for the maximum fidelity of realizable states that approximate single-photon pulses. The bounds have implications for ultrafast optics; the maximum fidelity is low for pulses with few cycles or close to the onset, but increases rapidly as the pulse envelope varies more slowly. We also demonstrate strictly localized states that are close to single photons.
In this work, we analyze the behavior of continuum single-photon pulses in some quantum communication schemes. In particular, we consider the single-photon interference in a Mach-Zenhder interferometer, the HOM interference and the quantum bit commitment protocol.
We experimentally demonstrate polarization entanglement for squeezed vacuum pulses containing more than 10^5 photons. We also study photon-number entanglement by calculating the Schmidt number and measuring its operational counterpart. Theoretically, our pulses are the more entangled the brighter they are. This promises important applications in quantum technologies, especially photonic quantum gates and quantum memories.
A method for performing nonlocal interferometry using phase-entangled macroscopic coherent states is described. The required entanglement can be generated using weak nonlinearities while Bell's inequality can be violated using single photons as a probe. The entanglement is relatively robust against photon loss and Bell's inequality can be violated over a relatively large distance in optical fibers despite the fact that a large number of photons are absorbed in the process.
We experimentally investigate a double-pass parametric down-conversion scheme for producing pulsed, polarization-entangled photon pairs with high visibility. The amplitudes for creating photon pairs on each pass interfere to compensate for distinguishing characteristics that normally degrade two-photon visibility. The result is a high-flux source of polarization-entangled photon pulses that does not require spectral filtering. We observe quantum interference visibility of over 95% without the use of spectral filters for 200 femtosecond pulses, and up to 98.1% with 5 nm bandwidth filters.
We suggest to test the premise of ``macroscopic local realism'' which is sufficient to derive Bell inequalities when measurements of photon number are only accurate to an uncertainty of order $n$ photons, where $n$ is macroscopic. Macroscopic local realism is only sufficient to imply, in the context of the original Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument, fuzzy ``elements of reality'' which have a macroscopic indeterminacy. We show therefore how the violation of local realism in the presence of macroscopic uncertainties implies the failure of ``macroscopic local realism''. Quantum states violating th…
We investigate the influence of environmental noise on polarization entangled light generated by parametric emission in a cavity. By adopting a recently developed separability criterion, we show that: i) self-stimulation may suppress the detrimental influence of noise on entanglement; ii) when self-stimulation becomes effective, a classical model of parametric emission incorporating noise provides the same results of quantum theory for the expectation values involved in the separability criterion. Moreover we show that, in the macroscopic limit, it is impossible to observe violations of local …
Franson-type nonlocal quantum correlation based on the particle nature of quantum mechanics has been intensively studied for both fundamental physics and potential applications of quantum key distribution between remotely separated parties over the last several decades. Recently, a coherence theory of deterministic quantum features has been applied for Franson-type nonlocal correlation [arXiv:2102.06463] to understand its quantumness in a purely classical manner, where the resulting features are deterministic and macroscopic. Here, nearly sub-Poisson distributed coherent photon pairs obtained …
The fluorescence of a single dipole excited by an intense light pulse can lead to the generation of another light pulse containing a single photon. The influence of the duration and energy of the excitation pulse on the number of photons in the fluorescence pulse is studied. The case of a two-level dipole with strongly damped coherences is considered. The presence of a metastable state leading to shelving is also investigated.
We study the generation of photon pulses from thermal field fluctuations through opto-mechanical coupling to a cavity with an oscillatory motion. Pulses are regularly spaced and become sharp for a high finesse cavity.
The three-pulse photon echo is a well-known technique to store intense light pulses in an inhomogeneously broadened atomic ensemble. This protocol is attractive because it is relatively simple and it is well suited for the storage of multiple temporal modes. Furthermore, it offers very long storage times, greater than the phase relaxation time. Here, we consider the three-pulse photon echo in both two- and three-level systems as a potential technique for the storage of light at the single-photon level. By explicit calculations, we show that the ratio between the echo signal corresponding to a …
To fully utilize the energy-time degree of freedom of photons for optical quantum information processes, it is necessary to control and characterize the quantum states of the photons at extremely short time scales. For measurements beyond the time resolution of available detectors, two-photon interference with a photon in a short time reference pulse may be a viable alternative. In this paper, we derive the temporal measurement operators for the bunching statistics of a single photon input state with a reference photon. It is shown that the effects of the pulse shape of the reference pulse can…
Propagation of a two-photon pulse in a waveguide coupled to a two-level system (TLS) is studied. The pulse is formed by two spatially separated identical wavepackets. A set of equations governing the dynamics of the photon distribution in the configuration-momentum space is derived and solved. It is shown that the distribution function can be negative that manifests its quasiprobability nature. A spectrum of the reflected light is found to be narrower than that of the transmitted light that features a pronounced filtering effect. Average numbers of the transmitted and reflected photons and the…
A simple method for the production of ultrashort light pulses (USPs) with suppressed photon fluctuations is considered. The method is based on self-phase modulation (SPM) of an USP in a nonlinear medium (optical fibre) and subsequent transmission of pulse through a dispersive optical element.
Single-photons with high spectro-temporal purity are an essential resource for quantum photonic technologies. The highest reported purity up until now from a conventional silicon photonic device is 92% without any spectral filtering. We have experimentally generated and observed single-photons with 98.0+-0.3 % spectro-temporal purity using a conventional micro racetrack resonator and an engineered dual pump pulse.
The photon density operator function is used to describe the propagation of single-photon pulses through a turbulent atmosphere. The effects of statistical properties of photon source and the effects of a random phase screen on the variance of photon counting are studied. A procedure for reducing the total noise is discussed. The physical mechanisms responsible for this reduction are explained.
We have previously shown that two-photon absorption (TPA) and the quantum Zeno effect can be used to make deterministic quantum logic devices from an otherwise linear optical system. Here we show that this type of quantum Zeno gate can be used with additional two-photon absorbing media and weak laser pulses to make a heralded single photon source. A source of this kind is expected to have a number of practical advantages that make it well suited for large scale quantum information processing applications.
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…
We propose a novel method to generate non-classical states of a single-mode microwave field, and to produce macroscopic cat states by virtue of a three-level system with $Δ$-shaped (or cyclic) transitions. This exotic system can be implemented by a superconducting quantum circuit with a broken symmetry in its effective potential. Using the cyclic population transfer, controllable single-mode photon states can be created in the third transition when two classical fields are applied to induce the other two transitions. This is because, for large detuning, two classical fields are equivalent to a…
The understanding of dynamical evolutions of interacting photon pulses in Rydberg atomic ensemble is the prerequisite for realizing quantum devices with such system. We present an approach that efficiently simulates the dynamical processes, using a set of local functions we construct to reflect the profiles of narrowband pulses. For two counter-propagating photon pulses, our approach predicts the distinct phenomena from the widely concerned Rydberg blockade to the previously less noticed significant absorption in the anomalous dispersion regime, which can occur by respectively setting the puls…
We describe the interaction of two two-level atoms in free space with propagating modes of the quantized electromagnetic field, using the time-dependent Heisenberg-Langevin method. For single- photon pulses, we consider the effect of the pulse's spatial and temporal profiles on the atomic excitation. In particular, we find the ideal shape for a pulse to put exactly one excitation in any desired state of the bi-atomic system. Furthermore, we analyze the differences in the atomic dynamics between the cases of Fock state pulses and coherent state pulses.
Photon pairs, highly entangled in polarization have been generated under femtosecond laser pulse excitation by a type I crystal source, operating in a single arm interferometric scheme. The relevant effects of temporal walk-off existing in these conditions between the ordinary and extraordinary photons were experimentally investigated. By introducing a suitable temporal compensation between the two orthogonal polarization components highly entangled pulsed states were obtained.
A Macro-state consisting of N= 3.5 x 10^4 photons in a quantum superposition and entangled with a far apart single-photon state (Micro-state) is generated. Precisely, an entangled photon pair is created by a nonlinear optical process, then one photon of the pair is injected into an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) operating for any input polarization state, i.e. into a phase-covariant cloning machine. Such transformation establishes a connection between the single photon and the multi particle fields. We then demonstrate the non-separability of the bipartite system by adopting a local filter…
We first use the quantum method to replicate the well-known results of a single atom relaxing, whilst demonstrating the intuitive picture it provides for dissipative dynamics. By use of individual "quantum trajectories", the method allows for simulation of systems inaccessible to ensemble treatments. This is shown by replicating resonance fluorescence, allowing us to concurrently demonstrate the method's facilitation of calculating photon statistics by the creation of discrete photon streams. To analyse these, we solidify the theoretical basis for, and implement, a computational method of calc…
We study the effects of arbitrary laser pulse excitations on quantum correlation, entanglement and the role of quantum noise. The transient quantities are computed exactly using a method that provides exact solutions of the Langevin field operators for photon pairs produced by a double Raman atom driven by laser pulses. Short pulses with appropriate chirping, delay and/or detuning can generate broadband photon pairs and yield results that provide insights on how to generate very large nonclassical correlation. We find that short pulses are not favorable for entanglement. The quantity was previ…
Franson-type nonlocal correlation is a testing tool for Bell inequality violation using noninterfering interferometers, where coincidence measurements involve an interference fringe of g^((1)) correlation between noninterfering photon pairs. Like the Bell inequality, Franson correlation is also limited to a microscopic regime of entangled photon pairs. Here, randomness-based macroscopic Franson-type nonlocal correlation is presented using polarization-basis coherent superposition of laser light, where probabilistic randomness between bipartite orthonormal bases plays an important role for both…
Single-photon coherent optics represents a fundamental importance for the investigation of quantum light-matter interactions. While most work has considered the interaction in the steady-state regime, here we demonstrate that a single-photon pulse shorter than any relaxation time in a medium propagates without energy loss and is consistently transformed into a zero-area pulse. A general analytical solution is found for photon passage through a cold ensemble of $Λ$-type atoms confined inside a hollow core of a single-mode photonic-crystal fiber. We use the robust far off-resonant Raman scheme t…
We present a mechanism to produce indistinguishable single-photon pulses on demand from an optical cavity. The sequences of two laser pulses generate, at the two Raman transitions of a four-level atom, the same cavity-mode photons without repumping of the atom between photon generations. Photons are emitted from the cavity with near-unit efficiency in well-defined temporal modes of identical shapes controlled by the laser fields. The second order correlation function reveals the single-photon nature of the proposed source. A realistic setup for the experimental implementation is presented.
Quantum superposition in mechanical systems is not only key evidence for macroscopic quantum coherence, but can also be utilized in modern quantum technology. Here we propose an efficient approach for creating macroscopically distinct mechanical superposition states in a two-mode optomechanical system. Photon hopping between the two cavity modes is modulated sinusoidally. The modulated photon tunneling enables an ultrastrong radiation-pressure force acting on the mechanical resonator, and hence significantly increases the mechanical displacement induced by a single photon. We study systematica…
Attenuated laser pulses are often employed in place for single photons in order to test the efficiency of the elements of a quantum network. In this work we analyse theoretically the dynamics of storage of an attenuated light pulse (where the pulse intensity is at the single photon level) propagating along a transmission line and impinging on the mirror of a high finesse cavity. Storage is realised by the controlled transfer of the photonic excitations into a metastable state of an atom confined inside the cavity and occurs via a Raman transition with a suitably tailored laser pulse, which dri…
The generation of ultrafast laser pulses and the reconstruction of their electric fields is essential for many applications in modern optics. Quantum optical fields can also be generated on ultrafast time scales, however, the tools and methods available for strong laser pulses are not appropriate for measuring the properties of weak, possibly entangled pulses. Here, we demonstrate a method to reconstruct the joint-spectral amplitude of a two-photon energy-time entangled state from joint measurements of the frequencies and arrival times of the photons, and the correlations between them. Our rec…
We propose an efficient approach to generate the superposed macroscopically squeezed states with enhanced squeezing in a two-mode optomechanical system. This can be achieved by introducing a sinusoidal modulation to either the cavity frequencies or the coupling strengths between two cavity modes. The squeezement of the oscillator can be significantly enhanced to 12.16 dB with single photon, once the relative ratio of coupling strength is optimized under proper conditions. Further enhanced squeezing can be obtained by carefully adjusting the system parameters. In terms of the Wigner quasi-proba…
We describe a technique for generating pulses of light with controllable photon numbers, propagation direction, timing, and pulse shapes. The technique is based on preparation of an atomic ensemble in a state with a desired number of atomic spin excitations, which is later converted into a photon pulse. Spatio-temporal control over the pulses is obtained by exploiting long-lived coherent memory for photon states and electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in an optically dense atomic medium. Using photon counting experiments we observe generation and shaping of few-photon sub-Poissonian…
We address the question of existence of private quantum channel for qubits encoded in polarization degrees of freedom of a photon, that remains secure even if multi-photon (instead of single-photon) pulse is emitted. We show that random unitary channel distributed according to SU(2) Haar measure has this property. Further we analyze the qubit unitary k-designs. We show they ensure security if the photons' parity of the source is guaranteed. Otherwise, the qubit unitary k-designs do not guarantee perfect security.
We propose a method to transform a single photon field into bunches of pulses with controllable timing and number of pulses in a bunch. This method is based on transmission of a photon through an optically thick single-line absorber vibrated with a frequency appreciably exceeding the width of the absorption line. The spectrum of the quasi-monochromatic incoming photon is 'seen' by the vibrated absorber as a comb of equidistant spectral components separated by the vibration frequency. Tuning the absorber in resonance with m-th spectral component transforms the output radiation into bunches of p…
We investigate the dynamics of a single two-level atom, which interacts with pulses propagating in two spatial-modes (right and left) and frequency-continuum. Using Heisenberg equations of motion, we present the explicit analytical derivations and general formalisms for atomic excitation with two spatial-mode multi-photon pulses in both Fock state and coherent state. Based on those formalisms, we show that perfect atomic excitation by single photon Fock state pulse can only be realized when it is rising-exponentially shaped in the even-mode---a balanced superposition of the two spatial-modes. …
A pulsed source of energy-time entangled photon pairs pumped by a standard laser diode is proposed and demonstrated. The basic states can be distinguished by their time of arrival. This greatly simplifies the realization of 2-photon quantum cryptography, Bell state analyzers, quantum teleportation, dense coding, entanglement swapping, GHZ-states sources, etc. Moreover the entanglement is well protected during photon propagation in telecom optical fibers, opening the door to few-photon applications of quantum communication over long distances.
We propose an approach to realize a quantum random number generator (QRNG) based on the photon number decision of weak laser pulses. This type of QRNG can generate true random numbers at a high speed and can be adjusted to zero bias conveniently, thus is suitable for the applications in quantum cryptography.
Semiconductor quantum dots embedded in optical cavities are promising on-demand sources of single photons. Here, we theoretically study single photon emission from an optically driven two-photon Raman transition between the biexciton and the ground state of a quantum dot. The advantage of this process is that it allows all-optical control of the properties of the emitted single photon with a laser pulse. However, with the presence of other decay channels and excitation-induced quantum interference, on-demand emission of the single Raman photon is generally difficult to achieve. Here we show th…
The possibilities of recording, storage and reconstruction of short single photon wave packets in the photon echo technique are analyzed. The influence of the photon field and medium parameters on the quality and precision of the photon quantum state reconstruction is theoretically studied.
We propose a method to deterministically prepare a desired quantum state in a one-dimensional (1D) continuum by a shaped photon pulse. This method is based on time-reverse of the quantum emission process. We show that the desired quantum state such as Dicke or timed-Dicke state can be successfully prepared with very high fidelity even if the dissipation to the environment is nonnegligible and the pulse shaping is not perfect. We also show that large quantum entanglement between emitters can be created by just a single photon pulse. This method is experimentally feasible in 1D waveguide-QED or …
Generating multi-photon entangled states is a primary task for applications of quantum information processing. We investigate production of photon-triplet in a regime of light amplification in second-order nonlinear media under action of a pulsed laser beam. For this goal the process of cascaded three-photon splitting in an optical cavity driven by a sequence of laser pulses with Gaussian time-dependent envelopes is investigated. Considering production of photon-triplet for short-time regime and in the cascaded three-wave collinear configuration Generating multi-photon entangled states is a pr…
We show that very large nonlocal nonlinear interactions between pairs of colliding slow-light pulses can be realized in atomic vapors in the regime of electromagnetically induced transparency. These nonlinearities are mediated by strong, long-range dipole--dipole interactions between Rydberg states of the multi-level atoms in a ladder configuration. In contrast to previously studied schemes, this mechanism can yield a homogeneous conditional phase shift of pi even for weakly focused single-photon pulses, thereby allowing a deterministic realization of the photonic phase gate.
We study the generalized Young's double-slit interference for the beam produced in the spontaneously parametric down-conversion (SPDC). We find that the sub-wavelength lithography can occur macroscopically in both the two-photon intensity measurement and the single-photon spatial intensity correlation measurement. We show the visibility and the strength of the interference fringe related to the SPDC interaction. It may provide a strong quantum lithography with a moderate visibility in practical application.
