We describe a new experimental approach to probabilistic atom-photon (signal) entanglement. Two qubit states are encoded as orthogonal collective spin excitations of an unpolarized atomic ensemble. After a programmable delay, the atomic excitation is converted into a photon (idler). Polarization states of both the signal and the idler are recorded and are found to be in violation of the Bell inequality. Atomic coherence times exceeding several microseconds are achieved by switching off all the trapping fields - including the quadrupole magnetic field of the magneto-optical trap - and zeroing out the residual ambient magnetic field.
We study robustness of genuine multipartite entanglement for a system of three qubits under collective dephasing. Using a computable entanglement monotone for multipartite systems, we found that almost every state is quite robust under this type of decoherence. We analyze random states and weighted graph states at infinity and found all of them to be genuinely entangled.
We show how shared entanglement, together with classical communication and local quantum operations, can be used to perform an arbitrary collective quantum operation upon N spatially-separated qubits. A simple teleportation-based protocol for achieving this, which requires 2(N-1) ebits of shared, bipartite entanglement and 4(N-1) classical bits, is proposed. In terms of the total required entanglement, this protocol is shown to be optimal for even N in both the asymptotic limit and for `one-shot' applications.
We present a method of generating collective multi-qubit entanglement via global addressing of an ion chain following the guidelines of the Tavis-Cummings model, where several qubits are coupled to a collective motional mode. We show that a wide family of Dicke states and irradiant states can be generated by single global laser pulses, unitarily or helped with suitable postselection techniques.
In this paper, we investigate how to reduce the number of measurement configurations needed for sufficiently precise entanglement quantification. Instead of analytical formulae, we employ artificial neural networks to predict the amount of entanglement in a quantum state based on results of collective measurements (simultaneous measurements on multiple instances of the investigated state). This approach allows us to explore the precision of entanglement quantification as a function of measurement configurations. For the purpose of our research, we consider general two-qubit states and their ne…
In this paper, an optimal scheme of four-level quantum teleportation and swapping of quantum entanglement is given. We construct a complete orthogonal basis of the bipartite ququadrit systems. Using this basis, the four-level quantum teleportation and swapping can be achieved according to the standard steps. In addition, associate the above bases with the unextendible product bases and the exact entanglement bases, we prove that in the $2\times 2\times 2$ systems or $3\times 3$ systems the collective translations of multipartite quantum entanglement can be realized. PACC numbers: 03.67.Mn, 03.…
Known entanglement purification protocols for mixed states use collective measurements on several copies of the state in order to increase the entanglement of some of them. We address the question of whether it is possible to purify the entanglement of a state by processing each copy separately. While this is possible for pure states, we show that this is impossible, in general, for mixed states. The importance of this result both conceptually and for experimental realization of purification is discussed. We also give explicit invariants of an entangled state of two qubits under local actions …
We present an efficient quantum entanglement distribution over an arbitrary collective-noise channel. The basic idea in the present scheme is that two parties in quantum communication first transmit the entangled states in the frequency degree of freedom which suffers little from the noise in an optical fiber. After the two parties share the photon pairs, they add some operations and equipments to transfer the frequency entanglement of pairs into the polarization entanglement with the success probability of 100\%. Finally, they can get maximally entangled polarization states with polarization …
We study the dynamics of genuine multipartite entanglement for quantum systems upto four qubits interacting with general collective dephasing process. Using a computable entanglement monotone for multipartite systems, we observe the feature of freezing dynamics of genuine entanglement for three and four qubits entangled states. We compare the dynamics with that of random states and find that most states exibit this feature. We then study the effects of collective dephasing on genuine nonlocality and find out that although quantum states remain genuinely entangled yet their genuine nonlocality …
We investigate the dynamics of entanglement and nonlocality for multipartite quantum systems under collective dephasing. Using an exact and computable measure for genuine entanglement, we demonstrate the possibility of a non trivial phenomenon of time-invariant entanglement for multipartite quantum systems. We find that for four qubits, there exist quantum states, which are changing continously nevertheless their genuine entanglement remains constant. Based on our numerical results, we conjecture that there is no evidence of time-invariant entanglement for quantum states of three qubits. We po…
We study the ground-state entanglement of one-dimensional harmonic chains that are coupled to each other by a collective interaction as realized e.g. in an anisotropic ion crystal. Due to the collective type of coupling, where each chain interacts with every other one in the same way,the total system shows critical behavior in the direction orthogonal to the chains while the isolated harmonic chains can be gapped and non-critical. We derive lower and most importantly upper bounds for the entanglement,quantified by the von Neumann entropy, between a compact block of oscillators and its environm…
We describe an experimentally straightforward method for preparing an entangled W state of up to 100 qubits. Our repeat-until-success protocol relies on detection of single photons from collective spontaneous emission in free space. Our method allows entanglement preparation in a wide range of qubit implementations that lack entangling qubit-qubit interactions. We give detailed numerical examples for entanglement of neutral atoms in optical lattices and of nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond. The simplicity of our method should enable preparation of mesoscopic entangled states in a number of p…
A cogent theory of collective multipole-like quantum correlations in symmetric multiqubit states is presented by employing SO(3) irreducible spherical tensor representation. An arbitrary bipartite division of this system leads to a family of inequalities to detect entanglement involving averages of these tensors expressed in terms of the total system angular momentum operator. Implications of this theory to the quantum nature of multipole-like correlations of all orders in the Dicke states are deduced. A selected set of examples illustrate these collective tests. Such tests detect entanglement…
We investigate quantum correlations of the $N$-qubit states via a collective pseudo-spin interaction ($\propto J_y^2$) on arbitrary pure separable states for a given interval of time. Based on this dynamical generation of the $N$-qubit maximal entangled states, a quantum secret sharing protocol with $N$ continuous classical secrets is developed.
We study multipartite entanglement in non-equilibrium quantum phase transition (NEQPT) attainable in a coherently driven atomic ensemble undergoing collective decay. The NEQPT arises in the steady state of the system as the drive field strength is varied in comparison with the decay parameter. A close connection is observed between the critical behavior and the multi-partite entanglement in the system determined via the von Neumann entropy. The derivative of the von Neumann entropy shows Lambda-type behavior typical of the second order phase transitions. We further show that the calculated bi-…
We investigate entanglement between collective operators of two blocks of oscillators in an infinite linear harmonic chain. These operators are defined as averages over local operators (individual oscillators) in the blocks. On the one hand, this approach of "physical blocks" meets realistic experimental conditions, where measurement apparatuses do not interact with single oscillators but rather with a whole bunch of them, i.e., where in contrast to usually studied "mathematical blocks" not every possible measurement is allowed. On the other, this formalism naturally allows the generalization …
With atomic spontaneously generated coherence (SGC), we propose a novel scheme to coherently control the atom--photon momentum entanglement through atomic internal coherence. A novel phenomena of ``phase entanglement in momentum'' is proposed, and we found, under certain conditions, that super--high degree of momentum entanglement can be produced with this scheme.
We present an economical setup for faithful entanglement sharing against collective noise. It is composed of polarizing beam splitters, half wave plates, polarization independent wavelength division multiplexers, and frequency shifters. An arbitrary qubit error on the polarization state of each photon in a multi-photon system caused by the noisy channel can be rejected, without resorting to additional qubits, fast polarization modulators, and nondestructive quantum nondemolition detectors. Its success probability is in principle 100%, which is independent of the noise parameters, and it can be…
For a given pure state of a composite quantum system we analyze the product of its projections onto a set of locally orthogonal separable pure states. We derive a bound for this product analogous to the entropic uncertainty relations. For bipartite systems the bound is saturated for maximally entangled states and it allows us to construct a family of entanglement measures, we shall call collectibility. As these quantities are experimentally accessible, the approach advocated contributes to the task of experimental quantification of quantum entanglement, while for a three-qubit system it is cap…
An entanglement concentration scheme for unknown atomic entanglement states is proposed via entanglement swapping in cavity QED. Because the interaction used here is a large-detuned one between two driven atoms and a quantized cavity mode, the effects of the cavity decay and thermal field have been eliminated. These advantages can warrant the experimental feasibility of the current scheme.
We introduce a general scheme to detect various multiparticle entanglement structures from global non-permutationally invariant observables. In particular, we derive bounds on the variance of non-permutationally invariant and collective operators for the verification of $k$-party entanglement. For a family of observables related to the spin structure factor, we give quantitative bounds on entanglement that are independent of the total number of particles. We introduce highly non-symmetric states with genuine multipartite entanglement that is verifiable with the presented technique and discuss …
The entanglement of two dipole-coupled atoms with nondegenerate two-photon transitions interacting with two-mode field in lossless cavity has been investigated. It shows that the entanglement is dependent on the initial atomic states. The possibility of considerable growth of atomic entanglement due atomic coherence and dipole-dipole interaction is shown in the case of great mean values of thermal photons.
We analyze rigorously the dynamics of the entanglement between two qubits which interact only through collective and local environments. Our approach is based on the resonance perturbation theory which assumes a small interaction between the qubits and the environments. The main advantage of our approach is that the expressions for (i) characteristic time-scales, such as decoherence, disentanglement, and relaxation, and (ii) observables are not limited by finite times. We introduce a new classification of decoherence times based on clustering of the reduced density matrix elements. The charact…
We describe a theoretical scheme that allows for transfer of quantum states of atomic collective excitation between two macroscopic atomic ensembles localized in two spatially-separated domains. The conception is based on the occurrence of double-exciton dark states due to the collective destructive quantum interference of the emissions from the two atomic ensembles. With an adiabatically coherence manipulation for the atom-field couplings by stimulated Ramann scattering, the dark states will extrapolate from an exciton state of an ensemble to that of another. This realizes the transport of qu…
We present a Gaussian state analysis of the entanglement generation between two macroscopic atomic ensembles due the continuous probing of collective spin variables by optical Faraday rotation. The evolution of the mean values and the variances of the atomic variables is determined and the entanglement is characterized by the Gaussian entanglement of formation (GEoF) and the logarithmic negativity. The effects of induced opposite Larmor rotation of the samples and of light absorption and atomic decay are analyzed in detail.
We consider the coherent state radiation field inside a micromaser cavity and study the entanglement mediated by it on a pair of two level atoms passing though the cavity one after the other. We then investigate the effects of squeezing of the cavity field on the atomic entanglement. We compute the entanglement of formation for the emerging mixed two-atom state and show that squeezing of the cavity radiation field can increase the atomic entanglement.
Introducing classical fields, we can transfer entanglement completely from discrete qubits into entangled coherent state. The entanglement also can be retrieved from the continuous-variable state of the cavities to the atomic qubits. Via postselection measure, atomic entangled state and entangled coherent state can be mutual transformed fully.
We study the dynamics of a single control atom and an atomic sample interacting with a nonresonant cavity mode. The control atom is driven by an auxiliary classical field. Under certain conditions, the coherent energy exchange between the control atom and the atomic sample induced by the cavity mode is described by the Jaynes-Cummings model. The idea provides a possibility for quantum-state engineering and reconstruction for collective atomic modes.
We study entanglement dynamics of a couple of two-level atoms resonantly interacting with a cavity mode and embedded in a dispersive atomic environment. We show that in the absence of the environment the entanglement reaches its maximum value when only one exitation is involved. Then, we find that the atomic environment modifies that entanglement dynamics and induces a typical collapse-revival structure even for an initial one photon Fock state of the field.
We analyze multipartite entanglement between atomic ensembles within quantum matter-light interfaces. In our proposal, a polarized light beam crosses sequentially several polarized atomic ensembles impinging on each of them at a given angle α_i. These angles are crucial parameters for shaping the entanglement since they are directly connected to the appropriate combinations of the collective atomic spins that are squeezed. We exploit such scheme to go beyond the pure state paradigm proposing realistic experimental settings to address multipartite mixed state entanglement in continuous variable…
We propose an experimentally feasible scheme to demonstrate quantum nonlocality, using Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) and $W$ entanglement between atomic ensembles generated by a new developed method based on laser manipulation and{} single-photon detection.
Entanglement between light and matter combines the advantage of long distance transmission of photonic qubits with the storage and processing capabilities of atomic qubits. To distribute photonic states efficiently over long distances several schemes to encode qubits have been investigated -- time-bin encoding being particularly promising due to its robustness against decoherence in optical fibers. Here, we demonstrate the generation of entanglement between a photonic time-bin qubit and a single collective atomic spin excitation (spin-wave) in a cold atomic ensemble, followed by the mapping of…
We propose to entangle macroscopic atomic ensembles in cavity using EPR-correlated beams. We show how the field entanglement can be almost perfectly mapped onto the long-lived atomic spins associated with the ground states of the ensembles, and how it can be retrieved in the fields exiting the cavities after a variable storage time. Such a continuous variable quantum memory is of interest for manipulating entanglement in quantum networks.
We report observations of entanglement of two remote atomic qubits, achieved by generating an entangled state of an atomic qubit and a single photon at Site A, transmitting the photon to Site B in an adjacent laboratory through an optical fiber, and converting the photon into an atomic qubit. Entanglement of the two remote atomic qubits is inferred by performing, locally, quantum state transfer of each of the atomic qubits onto a photonic qubit and subsequent measurement of polarization correlations in violation of the Bell inequality |S| <2. We experimentally determine S =2.16 +/- 0.03. Entan…
We demonstrate the generation of heralded Fock-basis qubits $(a|0\rangle + b|1\rangle)$ from transient collective spin excitations in a hot atomic vapor. The collective spin excitation is heralded by Raman-scattered photons in a four-wave mixing process seeded by a weak coherent optical excitation. The amplitude and phase of the seed field allow arbitrary control over the qubit coefficients. The state of the ensemble is read out optically and then characterized using balanced homodyne tomography. This work represents a step towards quantum engineering of collective atomic spin states.
We demonstrate deterministic generation of two distinct collective excitations in one atomic ensemble, and we realize the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference between them. Using Rydberg blockade we create single collective excitations in two different Zeeman levels, and we use stimulated Raman transitions to perform a beam-splitter operation between the excited atomic modes. By converting the atomic excitations into photons, the two-excitation interference is measured by photon coincidence detection with a visibility of 0.89(6). The Hong-Ou-Mandel interference witnesses an entangled NOON state of the …
We formulate a wave atom optics theory of the Collective Atomic Recoil Laser, where the atomic center-of-mass motion is treated quantum mechanically. By comparing the predictions of this theory with those of the ray atom optics theory, which treats the center-of-mass motion classically, we show that for the case of a far off-resonant pump laser the ray optics model fails to predict the linear response of the CARL when the temperature is of the order of the recoil temperature or less. This is due to the fact that in theis temperature regime one can no longer ignore the effects of matter-wave di…
A common environment acting on a pair of qubits gives rise to a plethora of different phenomena, such as the generation of qubit-qubit entanglement, quantum synchronization and subradiance. Here we define time-independent figures of merit for entanglement generation, quantum synchronization and subradiance, and perform an extensive analytical and numerical study of their dependence on model parameters. We also address a recently proposed measure of the collectiveness of the dynamics driven by the bath, and find that it almost perfectly witnesses the behavior of entanglement generation. Our res…
We theoretically show that bright six-partite continuous-variable entanglement can be generated using cascaded four-wave mixing effects of third-order nonlinearity atomic systems above threshold. The six-partite continuous-variable entanglement among the six cavity fields with different frequencies is analyzed by applying optimized inseparability criteria proposed by Van Loock and Furusawa.
It is crucial for physical realization of quantum information networks to first establish entanglement among multiple space-separated quantum memories and then at a user-controlled moment to transfer the stored entanglement to quantum channels for distribution and conveyance of information. Here we present an experimental demonstration on generation, storage and transfer of deterministic quantum entanglement among three spatially separated atomic ensembles. The off-line prepared multipartite entanglement of optical modes is mapped into three distant atomic ensembles to establish entanglement o…
In this paper, we use the Weisskopf-Wigner theory to study the entanglement in the state of the free-space radiation field produced from vacuum due to atomic decay. We show how bipartite entanglement is shared between different partitions of the radiation modes. We investigate the role played by the size of the partitions and their detuning with the decaying atom. The dynamics of the atom-field entanglement during the atomic decay is also briefly discussed. From this dynamics, we assert that such entanglement is the physical quantity that fix the statistical atomic decay time.
We propose an experimentally feasible scheme to generate nonmaximal entanglement between two atomic ensembles. The degree of entanglement is readily tunable. The scheme involves laser manipulation of atomic ensembles, adjustable quarter- and half-wave plates, beam splitter, polarizing beam splitters, and single-photon detectors, and well fits the status of the current experimental technology. Finally we use the nonmaximally entangled state of ensembles to demonstrate quantum nonlocality by detecting the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality.
Heralded entanglement between collective excitations in two atomic ensembles is probabilistically generated, stored, and converted to single photon fields. By way of the concurrence, quantitative characterizations are reported for the scaling behavior of entanglement with excitation probability and for the temporal dynamics of various correlations resulting in the decay of entanglement. A lower bound of the concurrence for the collective atomic state of 0.9\pm 0.3 is inferred. The decay of entanglement as a function of storage time is also observed, and related to the local dynamics.
We address the dynamics induced by collective atomic recoil in a Bose-Einstein condensate in presence of radiation losses and atomic decoherence. In particular, we focus on the linear regime of the lasing mechanism, and analyze the effects of losses and decoherence on the generation of entanglement. The dynamics is that of three bosons, two atomic modes interacting with a single-mode radiation field, coupled with a bath of oscillators. The resulting three-mode dissipative Master equation is solved analytically in terms of the Wigner function. We examine in details the two complementary limits …
We explore how to cool atomic collective excitations in an optically-driven three-level atomic ensemble, which may be described by a model of coupled two harmonic oscillators (HOs) with a time-dependent coupling. Moreover, the coupled two-HO model is further generalized to address other cooling issues, where the lower-frequency HO can be cooled whenever the cooling process dominates over the heating one during the sideband transitions. Unusually, due to the absence of the heating process, the optimal cooling of our first cooling protocol for collective excitations in an atomic ensemble could b…
We present an efficient way for measuring the entanglement of the atoms. Through the auxiliary single photons input-output process in cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), the concurrence of the atomic entanglement can be obtained according to the success probability of picking up the singlet states of the atoms. This protocol has three advantages: First, we do not require the sophisticated controlled-not (CNOT) gates. Second, the distributed atoms are not required to intact with each other. Third, the atomic entanglement can be distributed nonlocally, which provides its important applications…
We studied the dispersive dissipation of denegerate-level atom interacting with a single linearly-polarized mode field. It is found that the degeneracy of the atomic level affects the dissipation bahavior of the system as well as the subsystems. The degeneracy of the atomic level augment the periods of entanglement and increase the degree of the maxima statistical mixture states.
We propose a scheme to realize entanglement swapping via superradiance, entangling two distant cavities without a direct interaction. The successful Bell-state-measurement outcomes are performed naturally by the electromagnetic reservoir, and we show how, using a quantum trajectory method, the non-local properties of the state obtained after the swapping procedure can be verified by the steering inequality. Furthermore, we discuss how the unsuccessful measurement outcomes can be used in an experiment of delayed-choice entanglement swapping. An extension of testing the quantum steering inequali…
We present a theory for the estimation of a classical magnetic field by an atomic sample with a gaussian distribution of collective spin components. By incorporating the magnetic field and the probing laser field as quantum variables with gaussian distributions on equal footing with the atoms, we obtain a very versatile description which is readily adapted to include probing with squeezed light, dissipation and loss and additional measurement capabilities on the atomic system.
We propose a simple technique to generate entanglement between distant cavities by using entanglement swapping involving atomic momenta. For the proposed scheme, we have two identical atoms, both initially in their ground state, each incident on far apart cavities with particular initial momenta. The two cavities are prepared initially in superposition of zero and one photon state. First, we interact each atom with a cavity in dispersive way. The interaction results into atom-field entangled state. Then we perform EPR state measurement on both atomic momenta state which is an analog of Bell me…
Hybrid matter-photon entanglement is the building block for quantum networks. It is very favorable if the entanglement can be prepared with a high probability. In this paper, we report the deterministic creation of entanglement between an atomic ensemble and a single photon by harnessing Rydberg blockade. We design a scheme that creates entanglement between a single photon's temporal modes and the Rydberg levels that host a collective excitation, using a process of cyclical retrieving and patching. The hybrid entanglement is tested via retrieving the atomic excitation as a second photon and pe…
The entanglement, purity and energy of two isolated two-level atoms which are initially prepared in Bell state and each interacts with a thermal cavity field are investigated by considering the atomic motion and the field-mode structure. We achieve the analytical solutions of the atomic qubits by using the algebraic dynamical approach and the influences of the field-mode structure parameter, the strength of the thermal field and the detuning on the entanglement, purity and energy are discussed. We also investigate the state evolution of the atomic qubits based on the entanglement-purity-energy…
Establishing a quantum interface between different physical systems is of special importance for developing the practical versatile quantum networks. Entanglement between low- and high-lying atomic spin waves is essential for building up Rydberg-based quantum information engineering, otherwhile be more helpful to study the dynamics behavior of entanglement under external pertur- bations. Here, we report on the successful storage of a single photon as a high-lying atomic spin wave in quantum regime. Via storing a K-vector entanglement between single photon and lowly lying spin wave, we thereby …
We propose a scheme of generating and verifying mesoscopic-level entanglement between two atomic ensembles using non-resonant stimulated Raman scattering. Entanglement can be generated by direct detection or balanced homodyne detection of the Stokes fields from the two cells, after they interfere on a beam splitter. The entanglement of the collective atomic fields can be transferred to the anti-Stokes fields in a readout process. By measuring the operator moments of the anti-Stokes fields, we can verify the presence of entanglement. We model the effects of practical factors such as Stokes fiel…
We propose a feasible scheme of quantum state storage and manipulation via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in flexibly $united$ multi-ensembles of three-level atoms. For different atomic array configurations, one can properly steer the signal and the control lights to generate different forms of atomic entanglement within the framework of linear optics. These results shed new light on designing the versatile quantum memory devices by using, e.g., an atomic grid.
The resonance fluorescence from regular atomic systems is shown to represent a continuous source of non-Gaussian entangled radiation propagating in two different directions. For a single atom entanglement occurs under the same conditions as squeezing. For more atoms, the entanglement can be more robust against dephasing than squeezing, hence providing a useful continuous source for various applications of entangled radiation.
