We present a review of theoretical and experimental aspects of multiphoton quantum optics. Multiphoton processes occur and are important for many aspects of matter-radiation interactions that include the efficient ionization of atoms and molecules, and, more generally, atomic transition mechanisms; system-environment couplings and dissipative quantum dynamics; laser physics, optical parametric processes, and interferometry. A single review cannot account for all aspects of such an enormously vast subject. Here we choose to concentrate our attention on parametric processes in nonlinear media, with special emphasis on the engineering of nonclassical states of photons and atoms. We present a detailed analysis of the methods and techniques for the production of genuinely quantum multiphoton processes in nonlinear media, and the corresponding models of multiphoton effective interactions. We review existing proposals for the classification, engineering, and manipulation of nonclassical states, including Fock states, macroscopic superposition states, and multiphoton generalized coherent states. We introduce and discuss the structure of canonical multiphoton quantum optics and the associated one- and two-mode canonical multiphoton squeezed states. This framework provides a consistent multiphoton generalization of two-photon quantum optics and a consistent Hamiltonian description of multiphoton processes associated to higher-order nonlinearities. Finally, we discuss very recent advances that by combining linear and nonlinear optical devices allow to realize multiphoton entangled states of the electromnagnetic field, that are relevant for applications to efficient quantum computation, quantum teleportation, and related problems in quantum communication and information.
It has been shown that there are not only transverse but also longitudinal couplings between microwave fields and a superconducting qubit with broken inversion symmetry of the potential energy. Using multiphoton processes induced by longitudinal coupling fields and frequency matching conditions, we design a universal algorithm to produce arbitrary superpositions of two-mode photon states of microwave fields in two separated transmission line resonators, which are coupled to a superconducting qubit. Based on our algorithm, we analyze the generation of evenly-populated states and NOON states. Co…
We examine an experimental setup implementing a family of quantum non-Gaussian filters. The filters can be applied to an arbitrary two-mode input state. We assume realistic photodetection in the filtering process and explore two different models of inefficient detection: a beam splitter of a small reflectivity located in front of a perfect detector and a Weierstrass transform applied to the unperturbed measurement outcomes. We explicitly give an operator which describes the coherent action of the filters in the realistic experimental conditions. The filtered states may find applications in qua…
Based on heralded interference on a six-port Mach-Zehnder interferometer, we propose protocols to generate a series of multiphoton states in primary output port, by injecting a coherent state in primary input port and two Fock states in two ancillary input ports, and measuring two Fock states in two ancillary output ports. Only manipulating at the single-photon level (i.e, |0> or |1>) in all ancillary ports, we generate sixteen types (six categories) of multiphoton nonclassical states, whose state vectors are unified as superposition of a new coherent state, a single-photon added coherent stat…
Transformations achievable by linear optical components allow to generate the whole unitary group only when restricted to the one-photon subspace of a multimode Fock space. In this paper, we address the more general problem of encoding quantum information by multiphoton states, and elaborating it via ancillary extensions, linear optical passive devices and photodetection. Our scheme stems in a natural way from the mathematical structures underlying the physics of linear optical passive devices. In particular, we analyze an economical procedure for mapping a fiducial 2-photon 2-mode state into …
The quantum theory of electromagnetic radiation predicts characteristic statistical fluctuations for light sources as diverse as sunlight, laser radiation and molecule fluorescence. Indeed, these underlying statistical fluctuations of light are associated with the fundamental physical processes behind their generation. In this contribution, we demonstrate that the manipulation of the quantum electromagnetic fluctuations of a pair of vacuum states leads to a novel family of quantum-correlated multiphoton states with tunable mean photon numbers and degree of correlation. Our technique relies on …
We have developed a theory for accessing quantum coherences in mutually unbiased bases associated with generalized Pauli operators in multiphoton multimode linear optics networks (LONs). We show a way to construct complementary Pauli measurements in multiphoton LONs and establish a theory for evaluation of their photonic measurement statistics without dealing with the computational complexity of Boson samplings. This theory extends characterization of complementary properties in single-photon LONs to multiphoton LONs employing convex-roof extension. It allows us to detect quantum properties su…
We develop a theory for the interaction of multi-level atoms with multi-mode cavities yielding cavity-enhanced multi-photon resonances. The locations of the resonances are predicted from the use of effective two- and three-level Hamiltonians. As an application we show that quantum gates can be realised when photonic qubits are encoded on the cavity modes in arrangements where ancilla atoms transit the cavity. The fidelity of operations is increased by conditional measurements on the atom and by the use of a selected, dual-rail, Hilbert space. A universal set of gates is proposed, including the…
Determining an unknown quantum state from an ensemble of identical systems is a fundamental, yet experimentally demanding, task in quantum science. Here we study the number of measurement bases needed to fully characterize an arbitrary multi-mode state containing a definite number of photons, or an arbitrary mixture of such states. We show this task can be achieved using only linear optics and photon counting, which yield a practical though non-universal set of projective measurements. We derive the minimum number of measurement settings required and numerically show that this lower bound is s…
Recent progress on quantum state engineering has enabled the preparation of quantum photonic systems comprising multiple interacting particles. Interestingly, multiphoton quantum systems can host many complex forms of interference and scattering processes that are essential to perform operations that are intractable on classical systems. Unfortunately, the quantum coherence properties of multiphoton systems degrade upon propagation leading to undesired quantum-to-classical transitions. Furthermore, the manipulation of multiphoton quantum systems requires of nonlinear interactions at the few-ph…
Multiphoton entanglement, as a quantum resource, plays an essential role in linear optical quantum information processing. Krenn et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 080401 2017) proposed an innovative scheme that generating entanglement by path identity, in which two-photon interference (called Hong-Ou-Mandel effect) is not necessary in experiment. However, the experiments in this scheme have strict requirements in stability and scalability, which is difficult to be realized in bulk optics. To solve this problem, in this paper we first propose an on-chip scheme to generate multi-photon polarization …
We present a scheme, based only on linear optics and standard photon detection, that allows to generate heralded multiphoton entangled states of arbitrary photon number from spontaneous parametric downconversion (PDC) in the weak interaction regime. The scheme also works in the strong interaction regime, i.e., for the production of large photon numbers, when photon-number resolving detectors with nearly perfect quantum efficiency are used. In addition, the same setup can be used for quantum metrology as multiphoton interferometer with sensitivity at the Heisenberg limit.
Protocols for probabilistic entanglement-assisted quantum teleportation and for entanglement swapping of material qubits are presented. They are based on a protocol for postselective Bell-state projection which is capable of projecting two material qubits onto a Bell state with the help of ancillary coherent multiphoton states and postselection by balanced homodyne photodetection. Provided this photonic postselection is successful we explore the theoretical possibilities of realizing unit fidelity quantum teleportation and entanglement swapping with $25\%$ success probability. This photon-assi…
Strong correlation of photons, particularly in the single-photon regime, has recently been exploited for various applications in quantum information processing. Existing correlation measurements, however, do not fully characterize multi-photon correlation in a relevant context and may pose limitations in practical situations. We propose a conceptually rigorous, but easy-to-implement, criterion for detecting correlated multi-photon emission out of a quantum optical system, drawn from the context of wavefunction collapse. We illustrate the robustness of our approach against experimental limitati…
Photon entanglement is an essential ingredient for linear optics quantum computing schemes, quantum cryptographic protocols and fundamental tests of quantum mechanics. Here we describe a setup that allows for the generation of polarisation-entangled N-photon states on demand. The photons are obtained by mapping the entangled state of N atoms, each of them trapped inside an optical cavity, onto the free radiation field. The required initial state can be prepared by performing postselective measurements on the collective emission from the cavities through a multiport beamsplitter.
The new process of quantum-injection into an optical parametric amplifier operating in entangled configuration is adopted to amplify into a large dimensionality spin 1/2 Hilbert space the quantum entanglement and superposition properties of the photon-couples generated by parametric down-conversion. The structure of the Wigner function and of the field's correlation functions shows a decoherence-free, multiphoton Schroedinger-cat behaviour of the emitted field which is largely detectable against the squeezed-vacuum noise. Furthermore, owing to its entanglement character, the system is found to…
Multi-photon processes are the essence of nonlinear optics. Optical harmonics generation and multi-photon absorption, ionization, polymerization or spectroscopy are widely used in practical applications. Generally, the rate of an n-photon effect scales as the n-th order autocorrelation function of the incident light, which is high for light with strong photon-number fluctuations. Therefore `noisy' light sources are much more efficient for multi-photon effects than coherent sources with the same mean power, pulse duration and repetition rate. Here we generate optical harmonics of order 2-4 from…
In this contribution, we show that the use of conditional measurements in the resonant interaction of two quantized electromagnetic fields gives rise to nonclassical multiphoton processes. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this phenomenon may enable a robust integrated-optics protocol to engineer quantum states containing a high number of photons, thus making it a potentially appealing platform for exploring mesoscopic quantum phenomena.
Many recent experiments employ several parametric down conversion (PDC) sources to get multiphoton interference. Such interference has applications in quantum information. We study here how effects due to photon statistics, misalignment, and partial distinguishability of the PDC pairs originating from different sources may lower the interference contrast in the multiphoton experiments.
When an atom is strongly coupled to a cavity, the two systems can exchange a single photon through a coherent Rabi oscillation. This process enables precise quantum-state engineering and manipulation of atoms and photons in a cavity, which play a central role in quantum information and measurement. Recently, a new regime of cavity QED has been reached experimentally where the strength of the interaction between light and artificial atoms (qubits) becomes comparable to the atomic transition frequency or the resonance frequency of the cavity mode. Here we show that this regime can strongly modif…
We present the proposition of an experiment in which the multiphoton quantum superposition consisting of N= 10^5 particles generated by a quantum-injected optical parametric amplifier (QI-OPA), seeded by a single-photon belonging to an EPR entangled pair, is made to interact with a Mirror-BEC shaped as a Bragg interference structure. The overall process will realize a Macroscopic Quantum Superposition (MQS) involving a microscopic single-photon state of polarization entangled with the coherent macroscopic transfer of momentum to the BEC structure, acting in space-like separated distant places.
We consider a multiphoton Bell-type inequality to study nonlocality in four-mode continuous variable systems, which goes beyond two-photon states and can be applied to mixed as well as states with fluctuating photon number. We apply the inequality to a wide variety of states such as pure and mixed Gaussian states (including squeezed thermal states) and non-Gaussian states. We consider beam splitters as a model for leakage and show that the inequality is able to detect nonclassicality of noisy Gaussian states as well. Finally, we investigate nonlocality in pair-coherent states and entangled coh…
We propose a Bell measurement scheme by employing a logical qubit in Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) entanglement with an arbitrary number of photons. Remarkably, the success probability of the Bell measurement as well as teleportation of the GHZ entanglement can be made arbitrarily high using only linear optics elements and photon on-off measurements as the number of photons increases. Our scheme outperforms previous proposals using single photon qubits when comparing the success probabilities in terms of the average photon usages. It has another important advantage for experimental feasibi…
Multiphoton quantum interference underpins fundamental tests of quantum mechanics and quantum technologies. Consequently, the detrimental effect of photon distinguishability in multiphoton interference experiments can be catastrophic. Here, we employ correlation measurements in the photonic inner modes, time or frequency, to restore quantum interference between photons differing in their colors or injection times in arbitrary linear optical networks, without the need for additional filtering or post selection. Interestingly, we demonstrate how harnessing the multiphoton inner-mode quantum info…
The estimation of high order correlation function values is an important problem in the field of quantum computation. We show that the problem can be reduced to preparation and measurement of optical quantum states resulting after annihilation of a set number of quanta from the original beam. We apply this approach to explore various photon bunching regimes in optical states with gamma-compounded Poisson photon number statistics. We prepare and perform measurement of the thermal quantum state as well as states produced by subtracting one to ten photons from it. Maximum likelihood estimation is…
In spite of decades of effort, it has not yet been possible to create single-mode multiphoton states of light with high success probability and near unity fidelity. Complex quantum states of propagating optical photons would be an enabling resource for diverse protocols in quantum information science, including for interconnecting quantum nodes in quantum networks. Here, we propose several methods to generate heralded mutipartite entangled atomic and photonic states by using the strong and long-range dissipative couplings between atoms emerging in waveguide QED setups. Our theoretical analysis…
The multiphoton Jaynes-Cummings model is investigated and applications in quantum information science are explored. Considering the strong atom-field coupling regime and an $N$-photon interaction, a nonlinear driving field can perform an arbitrary rotation in the Fock space of the cavity mode involving the vacuum and an $M$-Fock state, with $M<N$. Besides, driving the cavity mode with a linear coherent field (superposition of many Fock states), only the cavity states within the Fock subspace {$|0\rangle,|1\rangle,..., |N-1\rangle$} can be populated, i.e., we show how to implement a Fock state …
We propose a fruitful scheme for exploring multiphoton entangled states based on linear optics and weak nonlinearities. Compared with the previous schemes the present method is more feasible because there are only small phase shifts instead of a series of related functions of photon numbers in the process of interaction with Kerr nonlinearities. In the absence of decoherence we analyze the error probabilities induced by homodyne measurement and show that the maximal error probability can be made small enough even when the number of photons is large. This implies that the present scheme is quit…
Triggered single-photon sources produce the vacuum state with non-negligible probability, but produce a much smaller multiphoton component. It is therefore reasonable to approximate the output of these photon sources as a mixture of the vacuum and single-photon states. We show that it is impossible to increase the probability for a single photon using linear optics and photodetection on fewer than four modes. This impossibility is due to the incoherence of the inputs; if the inputs were pure-state superpositions, it would be possible to obtain a perfect single-photon output. In the more genera…
We introduce a formalism of nonlinear canonical transformations for general systems of multiphoton quantum optics. For single-mode systems the transformations depend on a tunable free parameter, the homodyne local oscillator angle; for n-mode systems they depend on n heterodyne mixing angles. The canonical formalism realizes nontrivial mixings of pairs of conjugate quadratures of the electromagnetic field in terms of homodyne variables for single-mode systems; and in terms of heterodyne variables for multimode systems. In the first instance the transformations yield nonquadratic model Hamilton…
The quantum statistical fluctuations of the electromagnetic field establish a limit, known as the shot-noise limit, on the sensitivity of optical measurements performed with classical technologies. However, quantum technologies are not constrained by this shot-noise limit. In this regard, the possibility of using every photon produced by quantum sources of light to estimate small physical parameters, beyond the shot-noise limit, constitutes one of the main goals of quantum optics. Here we experimentally demonstrate a scalable protocol for quantum-enhanced optical phase estimation across a broa…
We investigate the multiphoton quantum dynamics of a leaking single-mode quantized cavity field coupled with a resonantly driven two-level system possessing permanent dipoles. The frequencies of the interacting subsystems are being considered very different, e.g., microwave ranges for the cavity and optical domains for the frequency of the two-level emitter, respectively. In this way, the emitter couples to the resonator mode via its diagonal dipole moments only. Furthermore, the generalized Rabi frequency resulting form the external coherent driving of the two-level subsystem is assumed as we…
We present an algorithm of quantum engineering of large-amplitude>5 high-fidelity>0.99 even/odd Schrodinger cat states (SCSs) using a single mode squeezed vacuum (SMSV) state as resource. Set of k beam splitters (BSs) with arbitrary transmittance and reflectance coefficients sequentially following each other acts as a hub that redirects a multiphoton state into the measuring modes simultaneously measured by photon number resolving (PNR) detectors. We show that the multiphoton state splitting guarantees significant increase of the success probability of the cat state generator compared to its i…
In terms of the characteristic functions of the quantum states, we present a complete operator description of a lossy photon-subtraction scheme. Feeding a single-mode squeezed vacuum into a variable beam splitter and counting the photons in one of the output channels, a broad class of multiphoton-subtracted squeezed vacuum states (MSSVSs) can be generated in other channel. Here the losses are considered in the beginning and the end channels in the circuit. Indeed, this scheme has been discussed in Ref. [Phys. Rev. A 100, 022341 (2019)]. However, different from the above work, we give all the d…
Extending the scheme developed for a single mode of the electromagnetic field in the preceding paper ``Structure of multiphoton quantum optics. I. Canonical formalism and homodyne squeezed states'', we introduce two-mode nonlinear canonical transformations depending on two heterodyne mixing angles. They are defined in terms of hermitian nonlinear functions that realize heterodyne superpositions of conjugate quadratures of bipartite systems. The canonical transformations diagonalize a class of Hamiltonians describing non degenerate and degenerate multiphoton processes. We determine the coherent…
We explore applications of nonlinear circuit QED with a charge qubit inductively coupled to a microwave LC resonator in the photonic engineering and ultrastrong-coupling multiphoton quantum optics. Simply sweeping the gate-voltage bias achieves arbitrary Fock-state pulsed maser, where the single qubit plays the role of artificial gain medium. Resonantly pumping the parametric qubit-resonator interface leads to the squeezing of resonator field, which is utilizable to the quantum-limited microwave amplification. Moreover, upwards and downwards multiphoton quantum jumps may be observed in the ste…
We propose and analyze a multiphoton-state coherent transport protocol in a coupled-resonator quantum network. A multiphoton swap gate between two antipodes can be achieved with neither external modulation nor coupling strength engineering. Moreover, we extend this result to a coupled-resonator chain of arbitrary length with different coupling strengths. Effects of decoherence via quantum nondemolition interaction are studied with sources including vacuum quantum fluctuation and bath thermal excitations when the bath is in the thermal equilibrium state. These observations are helpful to unders…
The absence of optical afterglow at some gamma-ray bursts (so called dark bursts) requires analyses of physical features of this phenomenon. It is shown that such singularity can be connected with multiphoton processes of frequencies summation in the Rayleigh- Jeans part of spectra, their pumping into higher frequencies. It can be registered most probably on young objects with still thin plasma coating, without further thermalization, i.e. soon after a prompt beginning of the explosive activity.
Multiphoton heralding generates large-amplitude squeezed Schrödinger cat states and parity-selective Fock superpositions from squeezed vacuum via an OPA
Single photons are a vital resource for optical quantum information processing. Efficient and deterministic single photon sources do not yet exist, however. To date, experimental demonstrations of quantum processing primitives have been implemented using non-deterministic sources combined with heralding and/or postselection. Unfortunately, even for eight photons, the data rates are already so low as to make most experiments impracticable. It is well known that quantum memories, capable of storing photons until they are needed, are a potential solution to this `scaling catastrophe'. Here, we an…
We investigate how multiphoton quantum states obtained through optical parametric amplification can be manipulated by performing a measurement on a small portion of the output light field. We study in detail how the macroqubit features are modified by varying the amount of extracted information and the strategy adopted at the final measurement stage. At last the obtained results are employed to investigate the possibility of performing a microscopic-macroscopic non-locality test free from auxiliary assumptions.
The efficient simulation of quantum systems is a primary motivating factor for developing controllable quantum machines. For addressing systems with underlying bosonic structure, it is advantageous to utilize a naturally bosonic platform. Optical photons passing through linear networks may be configured to perform quantum simulation tasks, but the efficient preparation and detection of multiphoton quantum states of light in linear optical systems are challenging. Here, we experimentally implement a boson sampling protocol for simulating molecular vibronic spectra [Nature Photonics $\textbf{9}$…
We propose a model for computing of a certain set of analytical functions based on estimating the output distribution of multiphoton outcomes in an optical scheme with an initial single-mode squeezed vacuum (SMSV) state and photonic states measuring the number of photons in one of the output modes of the beam splitter (BS) by photon number resolving (PNR) detector. The set of considered analytical functions is polynomial expressions including arbitrary derivatives of certain functions which can take on very large values even on small interval in their argument and small values of the parameter…
Thermal states of light are widely used in quantum optics for various quantum phenomena testing. Particularly, they can be utilized for characterization of photon creation and photon annihilation operations. During the last decade the problem of photon subtraction from multimode quantum states become of much significance. Therefore, in this work we present a technique for statistical parameter estimation of multimode multiphoton subtracted thermal states of light, which can be used for multimode photon annihilation test.
