Practical and Chemoselective Reduction of Acyl Chloride to Alcohol by Borohydride in Aqueous Dichloromethane

A simple methodology for the reduction of acid chlorides to their corresponding alcohols has been developed. Various carboxylic acids were converted to alcohols in excellent yields using NaBH₄-K₂CO₃ in a mixed solvent system of dichloromethane and water (1:1) in the presence of a phase-transfer catalyst at low temperature. The importance of the work is its simplicity, selectivity, excellent yield, and very short reaction time. This new reduction condition has proved to be an excellent chemoselective method for a range of acid chlorides in the presence of various functional groups.     

Quantum Phase Properties of Photon Added and Subtracted Displaced Fock States

Quantum phase properties of photon added and subtracted displaced Fock states (and their limiting cases) are investigated from a number of perspectives, and it is shown that the quantum phase properties are dependent on the quantum state engineering operations performed. Specifically, the analytic expressions for quantum phase distributions and angular Q distribution as well as measures of quantum phase fluctuation and phase dispersion are obtained. The uniform phase distribution of the initial Fock states is observed to be transformed by the unitary operation (i.e., displacement operator) into non‐Gaussian shape, except for the initial vacuum state. It is observed that the phase distribution is symmetric with respect to the phase of the displacement parameter and becomes progressively narrower as its amplitude increases. The non‐unitary (photon addition/subtraction) operations make it even narrower in contrast to the Fock parameter, which leads to broadness. The photon subtraction is observed to be a more powerful quantum state engineering tool in comparison to the photon addition. Further, one of the quantum phase fluctuation parameters is found to reveal the existence of antibunching in both the engineered quantum states under consideration. Finally, the relevance of the engineered quantum states in the quantum phase estimation is also discussed.     

Enhancement of Non-Gaussianity and Nonclassicality of Photon-Added Displaced Fock State: A Quantitative Approach

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. 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, namely entanglement potential, Wigner–Yanese skew information, Wigner logarithmic negativity, and relative entropy of non-Gaussianity. It is observed that Fock parameter always increases the amount of nonclassicality and non-Gaussianity, while photon addition is effective only for small values of the displacement parameter. Further, the nonclassical and non-Gaussian effects decrease initially with an increase in the displacement parameter before increasing for the large displacement to saturate to the corresponding Fock state (equivalently displaced Fock state) value. Finally, dynamics of the Wigner function under the effect of photon loss channel is used to show that only highly efficient detectors are able to detect Wigner negativity.     

Manipulating Nonclassicality via Quantum State Engineering Processes: Vacuum Filtration and Single Photon Addition

The effect of two quantum state engineering processes that can be used to burn a hole at vacuum in the photon number distribution of quantum states of radiation field is compared using various witnesses of lower- and higher-order nonclassicality as well as a measure of nonclassicality. Specifically, the modification in nonclassical properties due to vacuum state filtration and a single photon addition on an even coherent state, binomial state, and Kerr state are investigated using the criteria of lower- and higher-order antibunching, squeezing, and sub-Poissonian photon statistics. Further, the amount of nonclassicality present in these engineered quantum states having enormous applications in continuous variable quantum communication is quantified and analyzed by using an linear entropy-based entanglement potential. It is observed that all the quantum states studied here are highly nonclassical, and the hole-burning processes can introduce/enhance nonclassical features. However, it is not true in general. A hole at vacuum implies a maximally nonclassical state (as far as Lee's nonclassical depth is concerned), but a particular process of hole burning at vacuum does not ensure the existence of any particular nonclassical feature. Specifically, lower- and higher-order squeezing are not observed for photon-added and vacuum filtered even coherent states.     

Lower‐ and Higher‐Order Nonclassical Properties of Photon Added and Subtracted Displaced Fock States

Nonclassical properties of photon added and subtracted displaced Fock states are studied using various witnesses of lower‐ and higher‐order nonclassicality. Compact analytic expressions are obtained for the nonclassicality witnesses. Using those expressions, it is established that these states and the states that can be obtained as their limiting cases (except coherent states) are highly nonclassical as they show the existence of lower‐ and higher‐order antibunching and sub‐Poissonian photon statistics, in addition to the nonclassical features revealed through the Mandel $Q_M$ parameter, zeros of Q function, Klyshko's criterion, and Agarwal–Tara criterion. Further, some comparison between the nonclassicality of photon added and subtracted displaced Fock states have been performed using witnesses of nonclassicality. This has established that between the two types of non‐Gaussianity inducing operations (i.e., photon addition and subtraction) used here, photon addition influences the nonclassical properties more strongly. Further, optical designs for the generation of photon added and subtracted displaced Fock states from squeezed vacuum state have also been proposed.