We investigate the optimal tradeoff between information gained about an unknown coherent state and the state disturbance caused by the measurement process. We propose several optical schemes that can enable this task, and we implement one of them, a scheme which relies on only linear optics and homodyne detection. Experimentally we reach near optimal performance, limited only by detection inefficiencies. In addition we show that such a scheme can be used to enhance the transmission fidelity of a class of noisy channels.
In this comment we show that the experimental results for a universally valid uncertainty relation in ref.[J. Erhart et al. Nat. Phys.(2012)10.1038/nphys2194]cannot be justified. The experiments cannot be recognized to establish a violation of the Heisenberg-type uncertainty relation suggested by Ozawa[Phys. Lett. A318(2003)21, Phys. Rev. A67(2003)042105].
The uncertainty principle generally prohibits determination of certain pairs of quantum mechanical observables with arbitrary precision and forms the basis of indeterminacy in quantum mechanics. It was Heisenberg who used the famous gamma-ray microscope thought experiment to illustrate this indeterminacy. A lower bound was set for the product of the measurement error of an observable and the disturbance caused by the measurement. Later on, the uncertainty relation was reformulated in terms of standard deviations, which focuses solely on indeterminacy of predictions and neglects unavoidable rec…
Quantum key distribution (QKD) enables two distant users, Alice and Bob, to share secret keys. In existing QKD protocols, an eavesdropper's intervention will inevitably disturb the quantum signals; thus, Alice and Bob must monitor the signal disturbance to place a bound on the potential information leakage. However, T. Sasaki et al. proposed a quite different protocol, named round-robin differential phase shift (RRDPS), in which the amount of eavesdropped information is bounded without monitoring the signal disturbance. Here, we present the first active implementation of the RRDPS protocol. In…
Coherent feedback is a non-measurement based, hence a back-action free, method of control for quantum systems. A typical application of this control scheme is squeezing enhancement, a purely non-classical effect in quantum optics. In this paper we report its first experimental demonstration that well agrees with the theory taking into account time delays and losses in the coherent feedback loop. The results clarify both the benefit and the limitation of coherent feedback control in a practical situation.
We discuss and experimentally demonstrate a probabilistic Hadamard gate for coherent state qubits. The scheme is based on linear optical components, non-classical resources and the joint projective action of a photon counter and a homodyne detector. We experimentally characterize the gate for the coherent states of the computational basis by full tomographic reconstruction of the transformed output states. Based on the parameters of the experiment we simulate the fidelity for all coherent state qubits on the Bloch sphere.
We experimentally demonstrate a new measurement scheme for the discrimination of two coherent states. The measurement scheme is based on a displacement operation followed by a photon number resolving detector, and we show that it outperforms the standard homodyne detector which we, in addition, proof to be optimal within all Gaussian operations including conditional dynamics. We also show that the non-Gaussian detector is superior to the homodyne detector in a continuous variable quantum key distribution scheme.
We experimentally demonstrate coherent control of a quantum system, whose dynamics is chaotic in the classical limit. Interaction of diatomic molecules with a periodic sequence of ultrashort laser pulses leads to the dynamical localization of the molecular angular momentum, a characteristic feature of the chaotic quantum kicked rotor. By changing the phases of the rotational states in the initially prepared coherent wave packet, we control the rotational distribution of the final localized state and its total energy. We demonstrate the anticipated sensitivity of control to the exact parameters…
The ability to coherently spectrally manipulate quantum information has the potential to improve qubit rates across quantum channels and find applications in optical quantum computing. In this paper we present experiments that use a multi-element solenoid combined with the three-level gradient echo memory scheme to perform precision spectral manipulation of optical pulses. These operations include bandwidth and frequency manipulation, spectral filtering of separate frequency components, as well as time-delayed interference between pulses with both the same, and different, frequencies. These op…
We present a random number generation scheme that uses broadband measurements of the vacuum field contained in the radio-frequency sidebands of a single-mode laser. Even though the measurements may contain technical noise, we show that suitable algorithms can transform the digitized photocurrents into a string of random numbers that can be made arbitrarily correlated with a subset of the quantum fluctuations (high quantum correlation regime) or arbitrarily immune to environmental fluctuations (high environmental immunity). We demonstrate up to 2 Gbps of real time random number generation that …
Recently, a new interpretation of quantum mechanics has been developed for the wave nature of a photon, where determinacy in quantum correlations becomes an inherent property without the violation of quantum mechanics. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a direct proof of the wave natures of quantum correlation for the so-called coherence de Broglie waves (CBWs) using sub-Poisson distributed coherent photon pairs obtained from an attenuated laser. The observed experimental data coincides with the analytic solutions and the numerical calculations. Thus, the CBWs pave a road toward deterministic…
Quantum state discrimination is a central problem in quantum measurement theory, with applications spanning from quantum communication to computation. Typical measurement paradigms for state discrimination involve a minimum probability of error or unambiguous discrimination with a minimum probability of inconclusive results. Alternatively, an optimal inconclusive measurement, a non-projective measurement, achieves minimal error for a given inconclusive probability. This more general measurement encompasses the standard measurement paradigms for state discrimination and provides a much more pow…
Time-frequency Schmidt (TFS) modes of ultrafast quantum states are naturally compatible with high bit-rate integrated quantum communication networks. Thus they offer an attractive alternative for the realization of high dimensional quantum optics. Here, we present a quantum pulse gate based on dispersion-engineered ultrafast frequency conversion in a nonlinear optical waveguide, which is a key element for harnessing the potential of TFS modes. We experimentally retrieve the modal spectral-temporal structure of our device and demonstrate a single-mode operation fidelity of 80\%, which is limite…
We report an experimental investigation of the role of measurement in quantum metrology when the states of the probes are mixed. In particular, we investigated optimized local measurements and general global projective measurements, involving entangling operations, on noisy Werner states of polarization entangled photons. We demonstrate experimentally that global measurement presents an advantage in parameter estimation with respect to the optimized local strategy. Moreover, the global strategy provides unambiguous information about the parameter of interest even when the amount of noise is no…
Discrimination of coherent states beyond the standard quantum limit (SQL) is an important tasknot only for quantum information processing but also for optical coherent communication. In orderto optimize long distance optical fiber networks, it is of practical importance to develop a quantumreceiver beating the SQL and approaching the quantum bound at telecom wavelength. In this paper,we experimentally demonstrate a receiver beating the conventional SQL at telecom wavelength. Ourreceiver is composed of a displacement operation, a single photon counter and a real time adaptivefeedback operation.…
A novel protocol of interrogation based on coherent population trapping in an N-level scheme atomic system leads to dark resonances involving three different photons. An ensemble of several hundreds of radiofrequency-trapped ions is probed by three lasers simultaneously locked onto the same optical frequency comb, resulting in high-contrast spectral lines referenced to an atomic transition in the THz domain. We discuss the cause of uncertainties and limitations for this method and show that reaching a sub-kHz resolution is experimentally accessible via this interrogation protocole.
We report an experiment that demonstrates full function of a quantum router using entangled photons, where the paths of a single-photon pulse are controlled in a coherent fashion by polarization of another single photon. Through a projective measurement, we prepare the polarization of the control photon in arbitrary superposition states, leading to coherent routing of the target photon in quantum superposition of different paths. We demonstrate quantum nature of this router through optical measurements based on quantum state tomography and show an average fidelity of $(93.24\pm 0.23)%$ for the…
Analyses based on quantum metrology have shown that the ability to localize the positions of two incoherent point sources can be significantly enhanced through the use of mode sorting. Here we theoretically and experimentally investigate the effect of partial coherence on the sub-diffraction limit localization of two sources based on parity sorting. With the prior information of a negative and real-valued degree of coherence, higher Fisher information is obtained than that for the incoherent case. Our results pave the way to clarifying the role of coherence in quantum limited metrology.
Advances in highly sensitive detection techniques for classical coherent communication systems have reduced the received signal power requirements to a few photons per bit. At this level one can take advantage of the quantum noise to create secure communication, using continuous variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD). In this work therefore we embed CV-QKD signals within classical signals and transmit classical data and secure keys simultaneously over 25km of optical fibre. This is achieved by using a novel coherent displacement state generator, which has the potential for being used in a …
The Zeno effect occurs in quantum systems when a very strong measurement is applied, which can alter the dynamics in non-trivial ways. Despite being dissipative, the dynamics stay coherent within any degenerate subspaces of the measurement. Here we show that such a measurement can turn a single-qubit operation into a two- or multi-qubit entangling gate, even in a non-interacting system. We demonstrate this gate between two effectively non-interacting transmon qubits. Our Zeno gate works by imparting a geometric phase on the system, conditioned on it lying within a particular non-local subspace…
Transforming an initial quantum state into a target state through the fastest possible route---a quantum brachistochrone---is a fundamental challenge for many technologies based on quantum mechanics. Here, we demonstrate fast coherent transport of an atomic wave packet over a distance of 15 times its size---a paradigmatic case of quantum processes where the target state cannot be reached through a local transformation. Our measurements of the transport fidelity reveal the existence of a minimum duration---a quantum speed limit---for the coherent splitting and recombination of matter waves. We …
Digital signatures are frequently used in data transfer to prevent impersonation, repudiation and message tampering. Currently used classical digital signature schemes rely on public key encryption techniques, where the complexity of so-called "one-way" mathematical functions is used to provide security over sufficiently long timescales. No mathematical proofs are known for the long-term security of such techniques. Quantum digital signatures offer a means of sending a message which cannot be forged or repudiated, with security verified by information-theoretical limits and quantum mechanics. …
Quantum Phase Transitions in Coherent Ising Machines: XY Model for Demonstration
School of Physics and Astronomy, Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学物理与天文学院）；Key Laboratory of Multiscale Spin Physics (Beijing Normal University), Ministry of Education（教育部多尺度自旋物理重点实验室（北京师范大学））
The atom-light interaction in a three-level system has shown significant physical phenomena, such as electromagnetically induced transparency and Autler{Townes splitting (ATS), for broad applications in classical and quantum information techniques. Here, we optimally demonstrated the ATS with a quantum state manipulation method. The ATS in the dephasing-dominated diamond NV center system was successfully recovered by coherent microwave control, which cannot be observed with traditional method. The dynamical process of ATS was investigated in detail, revealing a nontrivial quantum interference …
A major challenge in the field of quantum computing is the construction of scalable qubit coupling architectures. Here, we demonstrate a novel tuneable coupling circuit that allows superconducting qubits to be coupled over long distances. We show that the inter-qubit coupling strength can be arbitrarily tuned over nanosecond timescales within a sequence that mimics actual use in an algorithm. The coupler has a measured on/off ratio of 1000. The design is self-contained and physically separate from the qubits, allowing the coupler to be used as a module to connect a variety of elements such as …
Estimation of the properties of a physical system with minimal uncertainty is a central task in quantum metrology. Optical phase estimation is at the center of many metrological tasks where the value of a physical parameter is mapped to the phase of an electromagnetic field, and single-shot measurements of this phase are necessary. While there are measurements able to estimate the phase of light in a single shot with small uncertainties, demonstrations of near-optimal single-shot measurements for an unknown phase of a coherent state remain elusive. Here, we propose and demonstrate strategies f…
Quantum-limited amplifiers increase the amplitude of quantum signals at the price of introducing additional noise. Quantum purification protocols operate in the reverse way, by reducing the noise while attenuating the signal. Here we investigate a scenario that interpolates between these two extremes. We search for the optimal physical process that generates $M$ approximate copies of pure and amplified coherent state, starting from $N$ copies of a noisy coherent state with Gaussian modulation. We prove that the optimal deterministic processes are always Gaussian, whereas non-Gaussianity powers…
The quest for the perfect single-photon source includes finding the optimal protocol for exciting the quantum emitter. Based on a recently proposed, so-called SUPER (swing-up of quantum emitter population) scheme, we demonstrate experimentally that two red-detuned laser pulses, neither of which could yield a significant upper-level population individually, lead to the coherent excitation of a semiconductor quantum dot. We characterize the emitted single photons and show that they have properties comparable to those achieved under resonant excitation schemes.
Defining a computational basis of pseudo-number states, we interpret a coherent state of large amplitude, $|α|\gg\frac{d}{2π}$, as a qudit --- a $d$-level quantum system --- in a state that is an even superposition of $d$ pseudo-number states. A pair of such coherent-state qudits can be prepared in maximally entangled state by generalized Controlled-$Z$ operation that is based on cross-Kerr nonlinearity, which can be weak for large $d$. Hence, a coherent-state optical qudit cluster state can be prepared by repetitive application of the generalized Controlled-$Z$ operation to a set of coherent …
We establish the ultimate quantum limits to the amplification of an unknown coherent state, both in the deterministic and probabilistic case, investigating the realistic scenario where the expected photon number is finite. In addition, we provide the benchmark that experimental realizations have to surpass in order to beat all classical amplification strategies and to demonstrate genuine quantum amplification. Our result guarantees that a successful demonstration is in principle possible for every finite value of the expected photon number.
