Gaussian quantum channels have recently attracted a growing interest, since they may lead to a tractable approach to the generally hard problem of evaluating quantum channel capacities. However, the analysis performed so far has always been restricted to memoryless channels. Here, we consider the case of a bosonic Gaussian channel with memory, and show that the classical capacity can be significantly enhanced by employing entangled input symbols instead of product symbols.
Quantum teleportation requires the transmission of entangled pairs to Alice and Bob. Transmission errors modify the entangled state before the teleportation can be performed. We determine the changes in the output state caused by such transmission errors. It is shown that the errors caused by entanglement transmission are equivalent to the errors caused in a direct transmission of a quantum state from Alice to Bob.
We discuss the possibility of synchronising two atomic clocks exchanging entangled photon pairs through a quantum channel. A proposal for implementing practically such a scheme is discussed.
We analyse the correlation properties of light in non-linear wave-guides and transmission lines, predict the position-momentum realization of EPR paradox for photon pairs in Kerr-type non-linear photonic circuits, and we show how two-photon entangled states can be generated and detected.
We study the feasibility of nonlocally compensating for polarization mode dispersion (PMD), when polarization entangled photons are distributed in fiber-optic channels.We quantify the effectiveness of nonlocal compensation while taking into account the possibility that entanglement is generated through the use of a pulsed optical pump signal.
We present an experimental evidence that high dimensional orbital angular momentum entanglement of a pair of photons can be survived after a photon-plasmon-photon conversion. The information of spatial modes can be coherently transmitted by surface plasmons. This experiment primarily studies the high dimensional entangled systems based on surface plasmon with subwavelength structures. It maybe useful in the investigation of spatial mode properties of surface plasmon assisted transmission through subwavelength hole arrays.
he multiqubit entangled states are coherently controlled in the quantum spin systems composed of $N+1$ interacting antiferromagnetic molecular rings. The tunable intermolecular couplings arise from the local exchange interactions between electron spins of $N$ circumjacent magnets and those of one central molecular ring. The quantum dynamics of such system is analytically deduced by the effective spin hamiltonian with anisotropic Heisenberg couplings. It is found that entangled $W$ states can be generated with a high precision under the circumstance of quantum fluctuations. The multiqubit entan…
We propose an alignment-free two-party polarization-entanglement transmission scheme for entangled photons by using only linear-optical elements, requiring neither ancillary photons nor calibrated reference frames. The scheme is robust against both the random channel noise and the instability of reference frames, and it is subsequently extended to multi-party Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state transmission. Furthermore, the success probabilities for two- and multi-party entanglement transmission are, in principle, improved to unity when active polarization controllers are used. The distinct cha…
The recent surface plasmon entanglement experiment [E. Altewischer et al., Nature (London) 418, 304 (2002)] is theoretically analyzed. The entanglement preservation upon transmission in the non-focused case is found to provide information about the interaction of the biphoton and the metallic film. The entanglement degradation in the focused case is explained in the framework of a fully multimode model. This phenomenon is a consequence of the polarization-selective filtering behavior of the metallic nanostructured film.
We propose a new scheme in which perfect transmission of 1-qubit information is achieved with high success using purposefully delayed sharing of non-maximally entangled 2-qubit resource and repeated generalized Bell-state measurements (GBSM). Alice possesses initially all qubits and she makes repeated GBSM on the pair of qubits, consisting of (1) the qubit of information state and (2) one of the two entangled resource qubits (taken alternately) until transmission with perfect fidelity is indicated. Alice then sends to Bob, the qubit not used in the last GBSM and also the result of this GBSM an…
We demonstrate non-degenerate down-conversion at 810 and 1550 nm for long-distance fiber based quantum communication using polarization entangled photon pairs. Measurements of the two-photon visibility, without dark count subtraction, have shown that the quantum correlations (raw visibility 89%) allow secure quantum cryptography after 100 km of non-zero dispersion shifted fiber using commercially available single photon detectors. In addition, quantum state tomography has revealed little degradation of state negativity, decreasing from 0.99 at the source to 0.93 after 100 km, indicating minima…
We prove that a general upper bound on the maximal mutual information of quantum channels is saturated in the case of Pauli channels with an arbitrary degree of memory. For a subset of such channels we explicitly identify the optimal signal states. We show analytically that for such a class of channels entangled states are indeed optimal above a given memory threshold. It is noteworthy that the resulting channel capacity is a non-differentiable function of the memory parameter.
Non-classical light sources based on a single quantum emitter are considered as core technology for multiple quantum network architectures. A large variety of sources has been developed, but the generated photons remained far from being utilized in established standard fiber networks. Here, we report a week-long transmission of polarization-entangled photons from a single InAs/GaAs quantum dot over a metropolitan network fiber. The emitted photons are in the telecommunication O-band, favored for fiber optical communication. We employ a polarization stabilization system overcoming changes of bi…
It has been shown recently (Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 090504 (2011)) that entangled light with Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) correlations retrieves information from digital memory better than any classical light. In identifying this, a model of digital memory with each cell consisting of reflecting medium with two reflectivities (each memory cell encoding the binary numbers 0 or 1) is employed. The readout of binary memory essentially corresponds to discrimination of two Bosonic attenuator channels characterized by different reflectivities. The model requires an entire mathematical paraphernalia o…
Trapped atomic ions are an ideal candidate for quantum network nodes, with long-lived identical qubit memories that can be locally entangled through their Coulomb interaction and remotely entangled through photonic channels. The integrity of this photonic interface is generally reliant on purity of single photons produced by the quantum memory. Here we demonstrate a single-photon source for quantum networking based on a trapped $^{138}\mbox{Ba}^+$ ion with a single photon purity of $ g^{2}(0)=(8.1\pm2.3)\times 10^{-5} $ without background subtraction. We further optimize the tradeoff between t…
Random generation and confidential distribution of cryptographic keys are fundamental building blocks of secure communication. Using quantum states in which the transmitted quantum bit is entangled with a stationary memory quantum bit allows the secure generation and distribution of keys to be based on fundamental properties of quantum mechanics. At the same time, the reach of secure communication networks can be enhanced, in particular, since this architecture would be compatible with quantum repeaters which are an integral part for scaling quantum networks. Here, we realize a true single-pho…
We propose a scheme for generating a genuine $χ$-type four-particle entangled state of superconducting artificial atoms with broken symmetry by using one-dimensional transmission line resonator as a data bus. The $Δ$-type three-level artificial atom we use in the scheme is different from natural atom and has cyclic transitions. After suitable interaction time and simple operations, the desired entangled state can be obtained. Since artificial atomic excited states and photonic states are adiabatically eliminated, our scheme is robust against the spontaneous emissions of artificial atoms and th…
Bulk diamond phonons have been shown to be a versatile platform for the generation, storage, and manipulation of high-bandwidth quantum states of light. Here we demonstrate a diamond quantum memory that stores, and releases on demand, an arbitrarily polarized $\sim$250 fs duration photonic qubit. The single-mode nature of the memory is overcome by mapping the two degrees of polarization of the qubit, via Raman transitions, onto two spatially distinct optical phonon modes located in the same diamond crystal. The two modes are coherently recombined upon retrieval and quantum process tomography c…
We investigate the problem of enhancement of mutual information by encoding classical data into entangled input states of arbitrary length and show that while there is a threshold memory or correlation parameter beyond which entangled states outperform the separable states, resulting in a higher mutual information, this memory threshold increases toward unity as the length of the string increases. These observations imply that encoding classical data into entangled states may not enhance the classical capacity of quantum channels.
Quantum entanglement enables tasks not possible in classical physics. Many quantum communication protocols require the distribution of entangled states between distant parties. Here we experimentally demonstrate the successful transmission of an entangled photon pair over a 144 km free-space link. The received entangled states have excellent, noise-limited fidelity, even though they are exposed to extreme attenuation dominated by turbulent atmospheric effects. The total channel loss of 64 dB corresponds to the estimated attenuation regime for a two-photon satellite quantum communication scenar…
We report on the feedback-optimized extraordinary optical transmission of continuous-variable entangled states through a hexagonal metal-hole array. The continuous-variable entanglements from a nondegenerate optical parametric amplifier are first demonstrated to survive after a photon-plasmon-photon conversion process. By controlling the reflected light from the metal-hole array, a significant enhancement of quantum correlations has then been experimentally achieved comparing to the case of without such coherent feedback control. This result presents a useful technique to efficiently recover t…
A quantum memory for light is a key element for the realization of future quantum information networks. Requirements for a good quantum memory are (i) versatility (allowing a wide range of inputs) and (ii) true quantum coherence (preserving quantum information). Here we demonstrate such a quantum memory for states possessing Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) entanglement. These multi-photon states are two-mode squeezed by 6.0 dB with a variable orientation of squeezing and displaced by a few vacuum units. This range encompasses typical input alphabets for a continuous variable quantum information …
Successful implementation of several quantum information and communication protocols require distributing entangled pairs of quantum bits in reliable manner. While there exists a substantial amount of recent theoretical and experimental activities dealing with non-Markovian quantum dynamics, experimental application and verification of the usefulness of memory-effects for quantum information tasks is still missing. We combine these two aspects and show experimentally that a recently introduced concept of nonlocal memory effects allows to protect and distribute polarization entangled pairs of p…
Using a superconducting circuit, the Josephson mixer, we demonstrate the first experimental realization of spatially separated two-mode squeezed states of microwave light. Driven by a pump tone, a first Josephson mixer generates, out of quantum vacuum, a pair of entangled fields at different frequencies on separate transmission lines. A second mixer, driven by a $π$-phase shifted copy of the first pump tone, recombines and disentangles the two fields. The resulting output noise level is measured to be lower than for vacuum state at the input of the second mixer, an unambiguous proof of entangl…
We address the question of optimality of entangled input states in quantum Gaussian memory channels. For a class of such channels, that can be traced back to the memoryless setting, we state a criterion which relate the optimality of entangled inputs to the symmetry properties of the channels' action. Several examples of channel models belonging to this class are discussed.
Device-independent quantum key distribution (DI-QKD) represents one of the most fascinating challenges in quantum communication, exploiting concepts of fundamental physics, namely Bell tests of nonlocality, to ensure the security of a communication link. This requires the loophole-free violation of a Bell inequality, which is intrinsically difficult due to losses in fibre optic transmission channels. Heralded photon amplification is a teleportation-based protocol that has been proposed as a means to overcome transmission loss for DI-QKD. Here we demonstrate heralded photon amplification for pa…
Multi-photon entangled states play a crucial role in quantum information applications such as secure quantum communication, scalable computation, and high-precision quantum metrology. Quantum memory for entangled states is a key component of quantum repeaters, which are indispensable in realizing quantum communications. Storing a single photon or an entangled photon has been realized through different protocols. However, there has been no report demonstrating whether a multi-photon state can be stored in any physical system or not. Here, we report on the experimental storage of a two-photon NO…
In [J. C. Howell and J. A. Yeazell, Phys. Rev. A 62, 012102 (2000)], a proposal is made to generate entangled macroscopically distinguishable states of two spatially separated traveling optical modes. We model the decoherence due to light scattering during the propagation along an optical transmission line and propose a setup allowing an entanglement purification from a number of preparations which are partially decohered due to transmission. A purification is achieved even without any manual intervention. We consider a nondemolition configuration to measure the purity of the state as contrast…
Classical feedback is defined here as the knowledge by the transmitter of the quantum state of the qubit received by the receiver. Such classical feedback doubles capacities of certain memoryless quantum channels without preexisting entanglement between transmitter and receiver. The increase in capacity, which is absent on classical memoryless channels, occurs because we can transform an entangled qubit pair into any other entangled state by applying a unitary operator to only one of the qubits.
The generation and long-haul transmission of highly entangled photon pairs is a cornerstone of emerging photonic quantum technologies, with key applications such as quantum key distribution and distributed quantum computing. However, a natural limit for the maximum transmission distance is inevitably set by attenuation in the medium. A network of quantum repeaters containing multiple sources of entangled photons would allow to overcome this limit. For this purpose, the requirements on the source's brightness and the photon pairs' degree of entanglement and indistinguishability are stringent. D…
We study the information transmission through a quantum channel, defined over a continuous alphabet and losing its energy en route, in presence of correlated noise among different channel uses. We then show that entangled inputs improve the rate of transmission of such a channel.
We propose a probabilistic scheme to prepare a maximally entangled state between a pair of two-level atoms inside a leaking cavity, without requiring precise time-controlling of the system evolution and initial atomic state. We show that the steady state of this dissipative system is a mixture of two parts: either the atoms being in their ground state or in a maximally entangled one. Then, by applying a weak probe field on the cavity mode we are able to distinguish those states without disturbing the atomic system, i.e., performing a quantum non-demolition measurement via the cavity transmissi…
The sufficient condition of entanglement enhanced classical capacity is given for Pauli memory channel with arbitrary channel parameters. In some special case the condition is also necessary but fail to be necessary in general. The theory of majorization and perturbation are used in the proving.
Quantum memory is an essential building block for quantum communication and scalable linear quantum computation. Storing two color entangled photons, with one photon being at telecom-wavelength while the other photon being compatible of quantum memory, has great advantages toward the realization of the fiber based long-distance quantum communication with the aid of quantum repeaters. Here, we report an experimental realization of storing a photon entangled with a telecom photon in polarization as an atomic spin wave in a cold atomic ensemble, thus establishing the entanglement between the tele…
This Article investigates dissipative preparation of entangled non-equilibrium steady states (NESS). We construct a collision model where the open system consists of two qubits which are coupled to heat reservoirs with different temperatures. The baths are modeled by sequences of qubits interacting with the open system. The model can be studied in different dynamical regimes: with and without environmental memory effects. We report that only a certain bath temperature range allows for entangled NESS. Furthermore, we obtain minimal and maximal critical values for the heat current through the sy…
We investigate the multiple use of a ferromagnetic spin chain for quantum and classical communications without resetting. We find that the memory of the state transmitted during the first use makes the spin chain a qualitatively different quantum channel during the second transmission, for which we find the relevant Kraus operators. We propose a parameter to quantify the amount of memory in the channel and find that it influences the quality of the channel, as reflected through fidelity and entanglement transmissible during the second use. For certain evolution times, the memory allows the cha…
We study a one-step approach to the fast generation of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states in a circuit QED system with superconducting flux qubits. The GHZ state can be generated in about 10 ns, which is much shorter than the coherence time of flux qubits and comparable with the time of single-qubit operation. In our proposal, a time-dependent microwave field is applied to a superconducting transmission line resonator (TLR) and displaces the resonator in a controlled manner, thus inducing indirect qubit-qubit coupling without residual entanglement between the qubits and the resonator. Th…
Multiplexed quantum memories capable of storing and processing entangled photons are essential for the development of quantum networks. In this context, we demonstrate the simultaneous storage and retrieval of two entangled photons inside a solid-state quantum memory and measure a temporal multimode capacity of ten modes. This is achieved by producing two polarization entangled pairs from parametric down conversion and mapping one photon of each pair onto a rare-earth-ion doped (REID) crystal using the atomic frequency comb (AFC) protocol. We develop a concept of indirect entanglement witnesse…
A class of quantum protocols to teleport bipartite (entangled) states of two qubits is suggested. Our schemes require a single entangled pair shared by the two parties and the transmission of three bits of classical information, as well as a two-qubit gate with an additional qubit at the receiver' location. Noisy quantum channels are considered and the effects on both the teleportation fidelity and the entanglement of the replica are evaluated.
We present three quantum key distribution protocols using entangled state. In the first two protocols, all Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs are used to distribute a secret key except those chosen for eavesdropping check, because the communication parties measure each of their particles in an invariable measuring basis. The first protocol is based on the ideal of qubit transmission in blocks. Although it need quantum memory, its theoretic efficiency approximates to 100%. The second protocol does not need quantum memory and its efficiency for qubits can achieve 100%. In the third protocol, we prese…
We propose and investigate a protocol for Gaussification of quantum states of traveling light beams in an atomic quantum memory that couples to light via quantum non-demolition interaction. The protocol relies on a periodic switching between two different QND couplings and the total coupling strength scales only logarithmically with number of Gaussified light modes. The present scheme can be used to prepare entangled states of two distant atomic ensembles and to purify and Gaussify noisy non-Gaussian entangled states of light while simultaneously storing the purified state in atomic memories.
We propose two deterministic secure quantum communication (DSQC) protocols employing three-qubit GHZ-like states and five-qubit Brown states as quantum channels for secure transmission of information in units of two bits and three bits using multipartite teleportation schemes developed here. In these schemes, the sender's capability in selecting quantum channels and the measuring bases leads to improved qubit efficiency of the protocols.
It is shown that memory effects in experiments measuring correlations in entangled photon pairs are not able to produce a relevant loophole for the test of local hidden variables theories.
Different from the previous works on generating entangled states, this work is focused on how to transfer the prepared entangled states onto memory qubits for protecting them against decoherence. We here consider a physical system consisting of $n$ operation qubits and $2n$ memory qubits placed in a cavity or coupled to a resonator. A method is presented for transferring $n$-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) entangled states from the operation qubits (i.e., information processing cells) onto the memory qubits (i.e., information memory elements with long decoherence time). The transferred…
Quantum interfaces (QIs) that generate entanglement between a multimode atomic memory and a photon forms a multiplexed repeater node and hold promise to greatly improve quantum repeater rates. Recently, the temporal multimode spin-wave memory that is entangled with a photon has been demonstrated with cold atoms. However, due to additional noise generated in multimode operation, the fidelity of spin-wave-photon entanglement significantly decreases with the mode number. So far, the improvement on temporal-multimode entanglement fidelity via suppressing the additional noise remains unexplored. He…
We show that non-maximally entangled states can be used to build a quantum key distribution (QKD) scheme whose security and key rate transmission is nearly equivalent to those of standard QKD protocols. These aspects can be controlled by using the new free parameter in the present scheme, namely, the degree of partial entanglement. Furthermore, we discuss how to build a controlled QKD scheme, also based on partially entangled states, where a third party can decide whether or not Alice and Bob are allowed to share a key.
The capacity of optical communication channels can be increased by space division multiplexing in structured optical fibers. Radial core optical fibers allows for the propagation of twisted light--eigenmodes of orbital angular momentum, which have attracted considerable attention for high-dimensional quantum information. Here we study the generation of entangled photons that are tailor-made for coupling into ring core optical fibers. We show that the coupling of photon pairs produced by parametric down-conversion can be increased by close to a factor of three by pumping the non-linear crystal …
We show how to efficiently send an M-partite entangled state along a spin chain of arbitrary size. Specifically, we show how an entangled M-partite W sate can be almost flawlessly transmitted from one end (Alice) to the other end (Bob) of a spin-1/2 chain described by a slightly modified XX model. We achieve an almost perfect transmission without employing external magnetic fields or modulating the coupling constants among the spins of the chain, the two standard approaches used to achieve a good transmission efficiency. Moreover, the protocol here proposed can be used to transform an M-partit…
The quantum key distribution protocol BB84, published by C. H. Bennett and G. Brassard in 1984, describes how two spatially separated parties can generate a random bit string fully known only to them by transmission of single-qubit quantum states. Any attempt to eavesdrop on the protocol introduces disturbance which can be detected by the legitimate parties. In this Master's Thesis a novel modification to the BB84 protocol is analyzed. Instead of sending single particles one-by-one as in BB84, they are grouped and a non-local transformation is applied to each group before transmission. Each pa…
The bosonic quantum channels have recently attracted a growing interest, motivated by the hope that they open a tractable approach to the generally hard problem of evaluating quantum channel capacities. These studies, however, have always been restricted to memoryless channels. Here, it is shown that the classical capacity of a bosonic Gaussian channel with memory can be significantly enhanced if entangled symbols are used instead of product symbols. For example, the capacity of a photonic channel with 70%-correlated thermal noise of one third the shot noise is enhanced by about 11% when using…
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle provides a fundamental limitation on an observer's ability to simultaneously predict the outcome when one of two measurements is performed on a quantum system. However, if the observer has access to a particle (stored in a quantum memory) which is entangled with the system, his uncertainty is generally reduced. This effect has recently been quantified by Berta et al. [Nature Physics 6, 659 (2010)] in a new, more general uncertainty relation, formulated in terms of entropies. Using entangled photon pairs, an optical delay line serving as a quantum memory and f…
We consider an ideal experiment in which unlimited nonprojective quantum measurements are sequentially performed on a system that is initially entangled with a distant one. At each step of the sequence, the measurements are randomly chosen between two. However, regardless of which measurement is chosen or which outcome is obtained, the quantum state of the pair always remains entangled. We show that the classical simulation of the reduced state of the distant system requires not only unlimited rounds of communication, but also that the distant system has infinite memory. Otherwise, a thermodyn…
We investigate the use of noisy entanglement as a resource in classical communication via a quantum channel. In particular, we are interested in the question whether for any entangled state, including bound entangled states, there exists a quantum channel the classical capacity of which can be increased by providing the state as an additional resource. We partially answer this question by showing, for any entangled state, the existence of a quantum memory channel the feedback-assisted classical capacity with product encodings of which can be increased by using the state as a resource. Using a …
We show that entanglement is a useful resource to enhance the mutual information of the depolarizing channel when the noise on consecutive uses of the channel has some partial correlations. We obtain a threshold in the degree of memory, depending on the shrinking factor of the channel, above which a higher amount of classical information is transmitted with entangled signals.
High dimensional Hilbert spaces used for quantum communication channels offer the possibility of large data transmission capabilities. We propose a method of characterizing the channel capacity of an entangled photonic state in high dimensional position and momentum bases. We use this method to measure the channel capacity of a parametric downconversion state, achieving a channel capacity over 7 bits/photon in either the position or momentum basis, by measuring in up to 576 dimensions per detector. The channel violated an entropic separability bound, suggesting the performance cannot be replic…
The reversible transfer of quantum states of light in and out of matter constitutes an important building block for future applications of quantum communication: it allows synchronizing quantum information, and enables one to build quantum repeaters and quantum networks. Much effort has been devoted worldwide over the past years to develop memories suitable for the storage of quantum states. Of central importance to this task is the preservation of entanglement, a quantum mechanical phenomenon whose counter intuitive properties have occupied philosophers, physicists and computer scientists sin…
