A recently introduced hierarchy of states of a single mode quantised radiation field is examined for the case of centered Guassian Wigner distributions. It is found that the onset of squeezing among such states signals the transition to the strongly nonclassical regime. Interesting consequences for the photon number distribution, and explicit representations for them, are presented.
A measure of nonclassicality of quantum states based on the volume of the negative part of the Wigner function is proposed. We analyze this quantity for Fock states, squeezed displaced Fock states and cat-like states defined as coherent superposition of two Gaussian wave packets.
There are quantum states of light that can be expressed as finite superpositions of Fock states (FSFS). We demonstrate the nonclassicality of an arbitrary FSFS by means of its phase space distributions such as the Wigner function and the $Q$-function. The decoherence of the FSFS is studied by considering the time evolution of its Wigner function in amplitude decay and phase damping channels. As examples, we determine the nonclassicality and decoherence of generalized and reciprocal binomial states.
The transient evolution of nonclassical radiation fields interacting with an atom in a cavity is correlated to the atomic dynamics. Connection between the atomic phases of collapse and revival, and the Wigner function pattern is explored. Initial classical coherent field can evolve into nonclassical field. Schrodinger cat state field is generate during the atomic collapse phase. For initial Schrodinger cat field state, the state dissolves with time but revives during the atomic phase that corresponds with the initial phase. More intricate but orderly characteristics are found between the colla…
A conditional kinetic energy is defined in terms of the Wigner distribution. It is shown that this kinetic energy may become negative for negative Wigner distributions. A free particle wave packet with negative kinetic energy will spread in a nonclassical manner.
The quantum backflow effect is a counterintuitive behavior of the probability current of a free particle, which may be negative even for states with vanishing negative momentum component. Here we address the notion of nonclassicality arising from the backflow effect, i.e. from the negativity of the probability current, and analyze its relationships with the notion of nonclassicality based on the negativity of the Wigner function. Our results suggest that backflow is linked to a different, and in fact more restrictive, notion of nonclassicality, the negativity of the Wigner function being only …
Non-Gaussian and nonclassical states and processes are already found to be important resources for performing various tasks related to quantum gravity and quantum information processing. The effect of non-Gaussianity inducing operators on the nonclassicality of quantum states has also been studied rigorously. Considering these facts, a quantitative analysis of the nonclassical and non-Gaussian features is performed here for photon added displaced Fock state, as a test case, using a set of measures like entanglement potential, Wigner Yanese skew information, Wigner logarithmic negativity and re…
Experimental realization of various quantum states of interest has become possible in the recent past due to the rapid developments in the field of quantum state engineering. Nonclassical properties of such states have led to various exciting applications, specifically in the area of quantum information processing. The present article aims to study lower- and higher-order nonclassical features of such an engineered quantum state (a generalized binomial state based on Abel's formula). Present study has revealed that the state studied here is highly nonclassical. Specifically, higher-order noncl…
The phase-space path-integral approach to the damped harmonic oscillator is analyzed beyond the Markovian approximation. It is found that pairs of nonclassical trajectories contribute to the path-integral representation of the Wigner propagating function. Due to the linearity of the problem, the sum coordinate of a pair still satisfies the classical equation of motion. Furthermore, it is shown that the broadening of the Wigner propagating function of the damped oscillator arises due to the time-nonlocal interaction mediated by the heat bath.
The nonclassicality of photon-added coherent fields in the thermal channel is investigated by exploring the volume of the negative part of the Wigner function which reduces with the dissipative time. The Wigner functions become positive when the decay time exceeds a threshold value. For the case of the single photon-added coherent state, we derive the exact threshold values of decay time in the thermal channel. For arbitrary partial negative Wigner distribution function, a generic analytical relation between the mean photon number of heat bath and the threshold value of decay time is presented…
Recently, a non-Gaussian field, which may be a useful basis for entanglement distillation and efficient quantum teleportation, has been experimentally produced by subtracting a photon from a squeezed Gaussian field. We investigate the nonclassicality of such the field using negativity in the Wigner function and the existence of positive well-defined $P$ function. We obtain the condition to see negativity in the Wigner function for the case including the mixed Gaussian incoming field, the threshold photodetection and the inefficient homodyne measurement. We show how similar the photon-subtracte…
Non-Gaussianity inducing operations are studied in the recent past from different perspectives. Here, we study the role of photon addition, a non-Gaussianity inducing operation, in the enhancement of nonclassicality in a finite dimensional quantum state, namely hypergeometric state with the help of some quantifiers and measures of nonclassicality. We observed that measures to characterize the quality of single photon source and anticlassicality lead to the similar conclusion, i.e., to obtain the desired quantum features one has to choose all the state parameters such that average photon number…
In a numerical study, we investigate the steady-state generation of nonclassical states of light from a coherently driven two-level atom in a one-dimensional waveguide. Specifically, we look for states with a negative Wigner function, since such nonclassical states are a resource for quantum information processing applications, including quantum computing. We find that a waveguide terminated by a mirror at the position of the atom can provide Wigner-negative states, while an infinite waveguide yields strictly positive Wigner functions. Moreover, our investigation reveals a connection between t…
The nonclassicality of single photon-added thermal states in the thermal channel is investigated by exploring the volume of the negative part of the Wigner function. The Wigner functions become positive when the decay time exceeds a threshold value $γ{t}_c$, which only depends on the effective temperature or mean thermal photon number of the thermal channel, but not depends on the effective temperature of the initial thermal state. This phenomenon is similar with the case of single quantum excitation of classical coherent states in thermal channel. Furthermore, we firstly demonstrate $γ{t}_c$ …
The Wigner function of a finite-dimensional system can be constructed via dual pairing of a density matrix with the Stratonovich-Weyl kernel. Following Kenfack and $\dot{\text{Z}}$yczkowski, we consider the indicator of nonclassicality of a finite-dimensional quantum system which depends on the volume of the negative part of the Wigner function. This indicator is defined over the unitary non-equivalent classes of quantum states, i.e. represents an invariant, but since for a given quantum system there is no unique Wigner function it turns to be sensitive to the choice of representations for the…
Considering the concept of "{\it nonlinear coherent states}", we will study the interference effects by introducing the {\it "superposition of two classes of nonlinear coherent states"} which are $\fracπ{2}$ out of phase. The formalism has then been applied to a few physical systems as "harmonious states", "SU(1,1) coherent states" and "the center of mass motion of trapped ion". Finally, the nonclassical properties such as sub-Poissonian statistics, quadrature squeezing, amplitude-squared squeezing and Wigner distribution function of the superposed states have been investigated, numerically. E…
We make a comparative study of quadrature squeezing, photon-number distribution and Wigner function in a decayed quantum system. Specifically, for a field mode prepared initially in cat states interacting with a zero-temperature environment, we show that the rate of reduction of the nonclassical effects in this system is proportional to the occurrence of the decoherence process.
Highly nonclassical character of optical quantum detectors, such as single-photon detectors, is essential for preparation of quantum states of light and a vast majority of applications in quantum metrology and quantum information processing. Therefore, it is both fundamentally interesting and practically relevant to investigate the nonclassical features of optical quantum measurements. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a procedure for direct certification of quantum non-Gaussianity and Wigner function negativity, two crucial nonclassicality levels, of photonic quantum detectors. R…
The ground state of quantum Rabi model (QRM) exhibits rich nonclassical states including squeezed state, cat state, and entangled state in different parameter regimes. In this paper, we firstly use the polaron picture to figure out the process of superradiant phase transition (SPT) in view of the nonclassical states. According to the polaron wave functions, the squeezed state extends to whole parameter regimes, and a small but non-zero weighted antipolaron is necessary to form novel semi-cat states. Moreover, the behavior of superradiance in the QRM can be viewed as the same displacement of th…
We analyze two two-mode continuous variable separable states with the same marginal states. We adopt the definition of classicality in the form of well-defined positive Wigner function describing the state and find that although the states possess positive local Wigner functions, they exhibit negative Wigner functions for the global states. Using the negativity of Wigner function as an indicator of nonclassicality, we show that despite these states possess different negativities of the Wigner function, they do not reveal this difference as phase space nonclassicalities such as negativity of th…
We define two ways of quantifying the quantum correlations based on quantum Fisher information (QFI) in order to study the quantum correlations as a resource in quantum metrology. By investigating the hierarchy of measurement-induced Fisher information introduced in Lu et al. [X. M. Lu, S. Luo, and C. H. Oh, Phys Rev. A 86, 022342 (2012)], we show that the presence of quantum correlation can be confirmed by the difference of the Fisher information induced by the measurements of two hierarchies. In particular, the quantitative quantum correlations based on QFI coincide with the geometric discor…
We implement the direct sampling of negative phase-space functions via unbalanced homodyne measurement using click-counting detectors. The negativities significantly certify nonclassical light in the high-loss regime using a small number of detectors which cannot resolve individual photons. We apply our method to heralded single-photon states and experimentally demonstrate the most significant certification of nonclassicality for only two detection bins. By contrast, the frequently applied Wigner function fails to indicate such quantum characteristics for the quantum efficiencies present in ou…
We consider an experimentally realizable scheme for manipulating quantum states using a general superposition of products of field annihilation ($\hat{a}$) and creation ($\hat{a}^†$) operators of the type ($s \hat{a}\hat{a}^†+ t \hat{a}^†\hat{a}$), with $s^2 + t^2 = 1$. Such an operation, when applied on states with classical features, is shown to introduce strong nonclassicality. We quantify the generated degree of nonclassicality by the negative volume of Wigner distribution in the phase space and investigate two other observable nonclassical features, sub-Poissonian statistics and squeezing…
We present controllable generation of various kinds of highly nonclassical states of light, including the single photon state and superposition states of mesoscopically distinct components. The high nonclassicality of the generated states is measured by the negativity of the Wigner function, which is largest ever observed to our knowledge. Our scheme is based on photon subtraction from a nearly pure squeezed vacuum, generated from an optical parametric oscillator with a periodically-poled KTiOPO$_4$ crystal as a nonlinear medium. This is an important step to realize basic elements of universal…
Highly nonclassical quantum states of light, characterized by Wigner functions with negative values, have been created so far only in a heralded fashion. In this case, the desired output emerges rarely and randomly from a quantum-state generator. An important example is the heralded production of high-purity single-photon states, typically based on some nonlinear optical interaction. In contrast, on-demand single-photon sources were also reported, exploiting the quantized level structure of matter systems. These sources, however, lead to highly impure output states, composed mostly of vacuum. …
We calculate exactly the quantum mechanical, temporal Wigner quasiprobability density for a single-mode, degenerate parametric amplifier for a system in the Gaussian state, viz., a displaced-squeezed thermal state. The Wigner function allows us to calculate the fluctuations in photon number and the quadrature variance. We contrast the difference between the nonclassicality criteria, which is independent of the displacement parameter $α$, based on the Glauber-Sudarshan quasiprobability distribution $P(β)$ and the classical/nonclassical behavior of the Mandel $Q_{M}(τ)$ parameter, which depends …
We theoretically generate nonclassical states from coherent state heralded by Knill-Laflamme-Milburn (KLM)-type SU(3) interference. Injecting a coherent state in signal mode and two single-photon sources in other two auxiliary modes of SU(3) interferometry, a broad class of useful nonclassical states are obtained in the output signal port after making two single-photon-counting measurements in the two output auxiliary modes. The nonclassical properties, in terms of anti-bunching effect and squeezing effect as well as the negativity of the Wigner function, are studied in detail by adjusting the…
We study an optomechanical system for the purpose of generating a nonclassical mechanical state when a mechanical oscillator is quadratically coupled to a single-mode cavity field driven by a squeezed optical field. The system corresponds to a regime where the optical dissipation dominates both the mechanical damping and the optomechanical coupling. We identify that multi-phonon processes emerge in the optomechanical system and show that a mechanical oscillator prepared in the ground state will evolve into an amplitude-squared squeezed vacuum state. The Wigner distribution of the steady state …
The output field from a continuously driven linear parametric oscillator may exhibit considerably more squeezing than the intracavity field. Inspired by this fact, we explore the nonclassical features of the steady-state output field of a driven nonlinear Kerr parametric oscillator using a temporal wave packet mode description. Utilizing a new numerical method, we have access to the density matrix of arbitrary wave packet modes. Remarkably, we find that even though the steady-state cavity field is always characterized by a positive Wigner function, the output may exhibit Wigner negativity, dep…
We introduce and experimentally explore the concept of quantum non-Gaussian depth of single-photon states with a positive Wigner function. The depth measures the robustness of a single-photon state against optical losses. The directly witnessed quantum non-Gaussianity withstands significant attenuation, exhibiting a depth of 18 dB, while the nonclassicality remains unchanged. Quantum non-Gaussian depth is an experimentally approachable quantity that is much more robust than the negativity of the Wigner function. Furthermore, we use it to reveal significant differences between otherwise strongl…
The significance of photon addition in engineering the single- and two-mode (bipartite correlations) nonclassical properties of a quantum state is investigated. Specifically, we analyzed the behavior of the Wigner function of two quasi-Werner states theoretically constructed by superposing two normalized bipartite $m$-photon added coherent states. This allowed us to quantify the amount of nonclassicality present in the quantum states using Wigner logarithmic negativity (WLN), while quantum correlations are measured in terms of concurrence, entanglement of formation, and quantum discord. The WL…
We report the experimental point-by-point sampling of the Wigner function for nonclassical states created in an ultrafast pulsed type-II parametric down-conversion source. We use a loss-tolerant time-multiplexed detector based on a fiber-optical setup and a pair of photon-number-resolving avalanche photodiodes. By capitalizing on an expedient data-pattern tomography, we assess the properties of the light states with outstanding accuracy. The method allows us to reliably infer the squeezing of genuine two-mode states without any phase reference.
We experimentally demonstrate the steady-state generation of propagating Wigner-negative states from a continuously driven superconducting qubit. We reconstruct the Wigner function of the radiation emitted into propagating modes defined by their temporal envelopes, using digital filtering. For an optimized temporal filter, we observe a large Wigner logarithmic negativity, in excess of 0.08, in agreement with theory. The fidelity between the theoretical predictions and the states generated experimentally is up to 99%, reaching state-of-the-art realizations in the microwave frequency domain. Our…
In this thesis concrete quantum systems are investigated in the framework of the environment induced decoherence. The focus is on the dynamics of highly nonclassical quantum states, the Wigner function of which are negative over some regions of their domains. One of the chosen physical systems is a diatomic molecule, where the potential energy of the nuclei is an anharmonic function of their distance. A system of two-level atoms, which can be important from the viewpoint of quantum information technology, is also investigated. A method is described that is valid in both systems and can determi…
Atoms trapped in optical lattice have long been a system of interest in the AMO community, and in recent years much study has been devoted to both short- and long-range coherence in this system, as well as to its possible applications to quantum information processing. Here we demonstrate for the first time complete determination of the quantum phase space distributions for an ensemble of $^{85}Rb$ atoms in such a lattice, including a negative Wigner function for atoms in an inverted state.
Conventional Glauber coherent states (CS) can be defined in several equivalent ways, e.g., by displacing the vacuum or, explicitly, by their infinite Poissonian expansion in Fock states. It is well known that these definitions become inequivalent if applied to finite $d$-level systems (qudits). We present a comparative Wigner-function description of the qudit CS defined (i) by the action of the truncated displacement operator on the vacuum and (ii) by the Poissonian expansion in Fock states of the Glauber CS truncated at $(d-1)$-photon Fock state. These states can be generated from a classical…
Several nonclassical effects displayed by wave packets subject to generic nonlinear Hamiltonians can be identified and assessed directly from tomograms without attempting to reconstruct the Wigner function or the density matrix explicitly. We have demonstrated this for both single-mode and bipartite systems. We have shown that a wide spectrum of effects such as the revival phenomena, quadrature squeezing and Hong-Mandel and Hillery type higher-order squeezing in both the single-mode system and the double-well Bose-Einstein condensate can be obtained from appropriate tomograms in a straightforw…
Wigner negativity, as a well-known indicator of nonclassicality, plays an essential role in quantum computing and simulation using continuous-variable systems. Recently, it has been proven that Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering is a prerequisite to generate Wigner negativity between two remote modes. Motivated by the demand of real-world quantum network, here we investigate the shareability of generated Wigner negativity in the multipartite scenario from a quantitative perspective. By establishing a monogamy relation akin to the generalized Coffman-Kundu-Wootters inequality, we show that the am…
Reshaping nonclassical properties and metrological performance of entangled coherent states via post-selected von Neumann measurements
State Key Laboratory of Semiconductor Physics and Chip Technologies, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院半导体研究所）；Center of Materials Science and Opto-Electronic Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学材料科学与光电技术研究中心）；Wolfram Research South America（Wolfram Research 南美分部）；School of Physics, Liaoning University（辽宁大学物理学院）
By numerically calculating the time-evolved Wigner functions, we investigate the dynamics of a few-photon superposed (e.g., up to two ones) state in a dissipating cavity. It is shown that, the negativity of the Wigner function of the photonic state unquestionably vanishes with the cavity's dissipation. As a consequence, the nonclassical effects related to the negativity of the Wigner function should be weakened gradually. However, it is found that the value of the second-order correlation function $g^{(2)}(0)$ (which serves usually as the standard criterion of a typical nonclassical effect, i.…
A standard method to obtain information on a quantum state is to measure marginal distributions along many different axes in phase space, which forms a basis of quantum state tomography. We theoretically propose and experimentally demonstrate a general framework to manifest nonclassicality by observing a single marginal distribution only, which provides a novel insight into nonclassicality and a practical applicability to various quantum systems. Our approach maps the 1-dim marginal distribution into a factorized 2-dim distribution by multiplying the measured distribution or the vacuum-state d…
We report on the robust experimental accumulation of nonclassicallity of motion of a single trapped ion. The nonclassicality stems from deterministic incoherent modulation of thermal phonon number distribution implemented by a laser excitation of nonlinear coupling between the ion's internal - electronic levels and external - motional states. We demonstrate that the repetitive application of this nonlinear process monotonically accumulates the observable state nonclassicality. The output states converge to a phonon number distribution with high overlap with a particular Fock state and visible …
