光子两自由度超并行量子计算与超纠缠态操控

光子系统在量子信息处理和传输过程中有非常重要的应用. 譬如, 利用光子与原子(或人工原子)之间的相互作用, 可以完成信息的安全传输、存储和快速的并行计算处理等任务. 光子系统具有多个自由度, 如极化、空间模式、轨道角动量、时间-能量、频率等自由度. 光子系统的多个自由度可以同时应用于量子信息处理过程. 超并行量子计算利用光子系统多个自由度的光量子态同时进行量子并行计算, 使量子计算具有更强的并行性, 且需要的量子资源少, 更能抵抗光子数损耗等噪声的影响. 多个自由度同时存在纠缠的光子系统量子态称为超纠缠态, 它能够提高量子通信的容量与安全性, 辅助完成一些重要的量子通信任务. 在本综述中, 我们简要介绍了光子系统两自由度量子态在量子信息中的一些新应用, 包括超并行量子计算、超纠缠态分析、超纠缠浓缩和纯化三个部分.     

Quantum Secure Direct Communication by Using Three-Dimensional Hyperentanglement

We propose two schemes for realizing quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) by using a set of ordered two-photon three-dimensional hyperentangled states entangled in two degrees of freedom (DOFs) as quantum information channels. In the first scheme, the photons from Bob to Alice are transmitted only once. After insuring the security of the quantum channels, Bob encodes the secret message on his photons. Then Alice performs single-photon two-DOF Bell bases measurements on her photons. This scheme has better security than former QSDC protocols. In the second scheme, Bob transmits photons to Alice twice. After insuring the security of the quantum channels, Bob encodes the secret message on his photons. Then Alice performs two-photon Bell bases measurements on each DOF. The scheme has more information capacity than former QSDC protocols.     

Efficient Entanglement Concentration of Nonlocal Two-Photon Polarization-Time-Bin Hyperentangled States

We present two different hyperentanglement concentration protocols (hyper-ECPs) for two-photon systems in nonlocal polarization-time-bin hyperentangled states with known parameters, including Bell-like and cluster-like states, resorting to the parameter splitting method. They require only one of two parties in quantum communication to operate her photon in the process of entanglement concentration, not two, and they have the maximal success probability. They work with linear optical elements and have good feasibility in experiment, especially in the case that there are a big number of quantum data exchanged as the parties can obtain the information about the parameters of the nonlocal hyperentangled states by sampling a subset of nonlocal hyperentangled two-photon systems and measuring them. As the quantum state of photons in the time-bin degree of freedom suffers from less noise in an optical-fiber channel, these hyper-ECPs may have good applications in practical long-distance quantum communication in the future.     

Quantum-Error-Rejection for Hyperentanglement Transmission without Calibrated Reference Frames

In quantum communication, the channel noise and the misalignment of the reference frames between the communication parties will lead to the failure of quantum state transmission. Here an alignment-free spatial-polarization hyperentanglement transmission scheme is provided for hyperentangled photons. In this scheme, before the spatial-polarization hyperentanglement is transmitted through the fiber channel, it is first encoded as a time-bin entanglement with the same polarization. After the photons pass through the noise channel, the polarization errors caused by reference frames misalignment and channel noise can be corrected by time-bin entanglement. In principle, by implementing this scheme, the communication parties can share the original hyperentangled state, and the success probability can approach unity. The scheme is robust to random channel noise and reference frames misalignment, and the decoherence effect caused by the misalignment of the reference frames between the communication parties can be completely suppressed by implementing this scheme.     

Faithful deterministic secure quantum communication and authentication protocol based on hyperentanglement against collective noise

Higher channel capacity and security are difficult to reach in a noisy channel. The loss of photons and the distortion of the qubit state are caused by noise. To solve these problems, in our study, a hyperentangled Bell state is used to design faithful deterministic secure quantum communication and authentication protocol over collective-rotation and collective-dephasing noisy channel, which doubles the channel capacity compared with using an ordinary Bell state as a carrier; a logical hyperentangled Bell state immune to collective-rotation and collective-dephasing noise is constructed. The secret message is divided into several parts to transmit, however the identity strings of Alice and Bob are reused. Unitary operations are not used.     

General hyperentanglement concentration for polarizationspatial- time-bin multi-photon systems with linear optics

Hyperentanglement has attracted considerable attention recently because of its high-capacity for longdistance quantum communication. In this study, we present a hyperentanglement concentration protocol (hyper-ECP) for nonlocal three-photon systems in the polarization, spatial-mode, and timebin partially hyperentangled Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) states using the Schmidt projection method. In our hyper-ECP, the three distant parties must perform the parity-check measurements on the polarization, spatial-mode, and time-bin degrees of freedom, respectively, using linear optical elements and Pockels cells, and only two identical nonlocal photon systems are required. This hyper-ECP can be directly extended to the N-photon hyperentangled GHZ states, and the success probability of this general hyper-ECP for a nonlocal N-photon system is the optimal one, regardless of the photon number N.     

All-versus-nothing nonlocality test of quantum mechanics by two-photon hyperentanglement

We report the experimental realization and the characterization of polarization and momentum hyperentangled two-photon states, generated by a new parametric source of correlated photon pairs. By adoption of these states an "all-versus-nothing" test of quantum mechanics was performed. The two-photon hyperentangled states are expected to find at an increasing rate a widespread application in state engineering and quantum information.     

Hyperconcentration Based on Projection Measurements

We propose an efficient hyperconcentration protocol for distilling maximally hyperentangled state from partially entangled pure state, resorting to the projection measurement on an auxiliary photon. In our scheme, two photons simultaneously entangled in polarization states and spatial modes are considered. One party performs quantum nondemolition detections on his photon and an additional photon to produce three photon hyperentangled state, then he projects the assistant photon into an orthogonal basis composed of both the polarization and spatial degree of freedom. Then the state of the left two photons collapses into maximally hyperentangled state with a certain probability. In the rest cases, some less-entangled states are obtained, which can be used as resource for the next round concentration. By repeating the concentration process for several rounds, a higher success probability can be obtained, which makes our scheme useful in practical quantum information applications.     

High-Capacity Quantum Secret Sharing with Hyperdense Coding Assisted by Hyperentangled Photon Pairs

We presents a high-capacity three-party quantum secret sharing (QSS) protocol with a sequence of photon pairs in hyperentangled Bell states in both the polarization and the spatial-mode degrees of freedom. In our scheme, the boss Alice prepares a sequence of photon pairs in hyperentangled Bell states and divides them into two photon sequences which are sent the two agents, respectively. Alice exploits four subsets of decoy photons to assure the security of the photon transmission between her and her agents. The present QSS scheme has the advantage of having a high channel capacity as each photon pair can carry 4 bits of secret message in principle, two times of that by Deng et al. (Phys. Lett. A 372: 1957, 2008). We give out the setups for the preparation of the photon pairs in hyperentangled Bell states with a beta barium borate crystal and the manipulation of the photons with linear optical elements. It will be shown that our QSS protocol is feasible with current experimental technology.     

Refined hyperentanglement purification of two-photon systems for high-capacity quantum communication with cavity-assisted interaction

Hyperentanglement, defined as the entanglement in multiple degrees of freedom (DOFs) of a photonic quantum system, has attracted much attention recently as it can improve the channel capacity of quantum communication largely. Here we present a refined hyperentanglement purification protocol (hyper-EPP) for two-photon systems in mixed hyperentangled states in both the spatial-mode and polarization DOFs, assisted by cavity quantum electrodynamics. By means of the spatial (polarization) quantum state transfer process, the quantum states that are discarded in the previous hyper-EPPs can be preserved. That is, the spatial (polarization) state of a four-photon system with high fidelity can be transformed into another four-photon system with low fidelity, not disturbing its polarization (spatial) state, which makes this hyper-EPP take the advantage of possessing a higher efficiency.     

Measurement-Based Hyperentanglement Distillation for Lossy and Distortion Photon State

The information content of a photon system can be extended by hyperentanglement, but the quality of hyperentanglement will be decreased by the complicated transmission loss and channel noise in quantum information processing. Here, an efficient measurement-based hyperentanglement distillation protocol (MB-HDP) is presented for depressing the effects of complicated transmission loss and channel noise on hyperentanglement. In the MB-HDP, the nonlocal lossy and distortion photon states are coupled to local hyperentangled Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) states using parity measurement and qubit amplification device, and the decoherence caused by bit-flip (phase-flip) error, diverse transmission coefficients and transmission loss can be depressed by the successful measurement results, which can increase the quality of nonlocal hyperentangled photon state. This MB-HDP broadens the application scope of hyperentanglement distillation to nonlocal lossy and distortion photon state with a lower degree of entanglement. In addition, the MB-HDP can further improve the quality of nonlocal hyperentangled photon state by coupling multiple copies of lossy and distortion hyperentangled photon state with local hyperentangled GHZ states. This work demonstrates the ability of measurement-based method for ensuring the quality of nonlocal hyperentanglement, which can improve the integrity and capacity of long-distance quantum information processing.     

The Linear Optical Unambiguous Discrimination of Hyperentangled Bell States Assisted by Time Bin

A linear optical unambiguous discrimination of hyperentangled Bell states is proposed for two‐photon systems entangled in both the polarization and momentum degrees of freedom (DOFs) assisted by time bin. This unambiguous discrimination scheme can completely identify 16 orthogonal hyperentangled Bell states using only linear optical elements, where the function of the auxiliary entangled Bell state is replaced by time bin. Moreover, the possibility of extending this scheme for distinguishing hyperentangled Bell states in n DOFs is discussed, and it shows that $2^{n+k+1}$ hyperentangled Bell states in n ( $n\ge 2$) DOFs can be distinguished with k ( $k<n$) auxiliary entangled states of additional DOFs by introducing a time delay, which decreases the auxiliary entanglement resource required for unambiguous discrimination of hyperentangled Bell state. Therefore, this scheme provides a new way for distinguishing hyperentangled states with current technology, which will extend the application of discrimination of hyperentangled states via linear optics to other quantum information protocols besides hyperdense coding schemes in the future.     

Self-error-rejecting photonic qubit transmission in polarization-spatial modes with linear optical elements

We present an original self-error-rejecting photonic qubit transmission scheme for both the polarization and spatial states of photon systems transmitted over collective noise channels. In our scheme, we use simple linear-optical elements, including half-wave plates, 50:50 beam splitters, and polarization beam splitters, to convert spatial-polarization modes into different time bins. By using postselection in different time bins, the success probability of obtaining the uncorrupted states approaches 1/4 for single-photon transmission, which is not influenced by the coefficients of noisy channels. Our self-error-rejecting transmission scheme can be generalized to hyperentangled n-photon systems and is useful in practical high-capacity quantum communications with photon systems in two degrees of freedom.     

Deterministic nondestructive state analysis for polarization-spatial-time-bin hyperentanglement with cross-Kerr nonlinearity

We present a deterministic nondestructive hyperentangled Bell state analysis protocol for photons entangled in three degrees of freedom(DOFs),including polarization,spatial-mode,and time-bin DOFs.The polarization Bell state analyzer and spatial-mode Bell state analyzer are constructed by polarization parity-check quantum nondemolition detector(P-QND)and spatial-mode parity-check quantum nondemolition detector(S-QND)using cross-Kerr nonlinearity,respectively.The time-bin Bell state analyzer is constructed by the swap gate for polarization state and time-bin state of a photon(P-T swap gate)and P-QND.The Bell states analyzer for one DOF will not destruct the Bell states of other two DOFs,so the polarization-spatial-time-bin hyperentangled Bell states can be determinately distinguished without destruction.This deterministic nondestructive state analysis method has useful applications in quantum information protocols.     

Nonlocal hyperconcentration on entangled photons using photonic module system

Entanglement distribution will inevitably be affected by the channel and environment noise. Thus distillation of maximal entanglement nonlocally becomes a crucial goal in quantum information. Here we illustrate that maximal hyperentanglement on nonlocal photons could be distilled using the photonic module and cavity quantum electrodynamics, where the photons are simultaneously entangled in polarization and spatial-mode degrees of freedom. The construction of the photonic module in a photonic band-gap structure is presented, and the operation of the module is utilized to implement the photonic nondestructive parity checks on the two degrees of freedom. We first propose a hyperconcentration protocol using two identical partially hyperentangled initial states with unknown coefficients to distill a maximally hyperentangled state probabilistically, and further propose a protocol by the assistance of an ancillary single photon prepared according to the known coefficients of the initial state. In the two protocols, the total success probability can be improved greatly by introducing the iteration mechanism, and only one of the remote parties is required to perform the parity checks in each round of iteration. Estimates on the system requirements and recent experimental results indicate that our proposal is realizable with existing or near-further technologies.     

Generation of hyperentangled photon pairs

We experimentally demonstrate the first quantum system entangled in every degree of freedom (hyperentangled). Using pairs of photons produced in spontaneous parametric down-conversion, we verify entanglement by observing a Bell-type inequality violation in each degree of freedom: polarization, spatial mode, and time energy. We also produce and characterize maximally hyperentangled states and novel states simultaneously exhibiting both quantum and classical correlations. Finally, we report the tomography of a 2 x 2 x 3 x 3 system (36-dimensional Hilbert space), which we believe is the first reported photonic entangled system of this size to be so characterized.     

Measurement-device-independent one-step quantum secure direct communication

The one-step quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) (Sci. Bull. 67, 367 (2022)) can effectively simplify QSDC's operation and reduce message loss. For enhancing its security under practical experimental condition, we propose two measurement-device-independent (MDI) one-step QSDC protocols, which can resist all possible attacks from imperfect measurement devices. In both protocols, the communication parties prepare identical polarization-spatial-mode two-photon hyperentangled states and construct the hyperentanglement channel by hyperentanglement swapping. The first MDI one-step QSDC protocol adopts the nonlinear-optical complete hyperentanglement Bell state measurement (HBSM) to construct the hyperentanglement channel, while the second protocol adopts the linear-optical partial HBSM. Then, the parties encode the photons in the polarization degree of freedom and send them to the third party for the hyperentanglement-assisted complete polarization Bell state measurement. Both protocols are unconditionally secure in theory. The simulation results show the MDI one-step QSDC protocol with complete HBSM attains the maximal communication distance of about 354 km. Our MDI one-step QSDC protocols may have potential applications in the future quantum secure communication field.     

优化抽运空间分布实现连续变量超纠缠的纠缠增强

超纠缠近年来受到人们广泛的关注,其在量子信息和量子通信领域具有非常重要的作用.在Liu等(2014 Phys. Rev. Lett. 113 170501)的工作中,他们利用二类相位匹配的非简并光学参量放大器获得了约1.00 dB的同时具有轨道角动量和自旋角动量纠缠的连续变量超纠缠态.在此基础上,本文通过进一步分析抽运模式与下转换模式间的纠缠关系,优化了抽运空间构造.实验结果表明,相比Liu等利用高斯基模做抽运场,使用优化的抽运模式时轨道角动量纠缠和自旋角动量纠缠的不可分度分别提高了96.2%和96.3%,最终将超纠缠态的纠缠度提高到了(4.00±0.02) dB,为连续变量超纠缠态的进一步应用奠定了基础.     

Practical quantum cryptography

A quantum cryptography system based on a 4-basis protocol with geometrically uniform states is tested in a series of experiments. Quantum states of light transmitted through real fiber optic communication channels to a distance of 32 km in the presence of uncontrolled external actions are prepared, transformed, and measured. It is shown that the chosen algorithms of processing quantum information are adequate and can be used as foundations of practical devices in protected communication lines.₁     

Three-Party Quantum Network Communication Protocols Based on Quantum Teleportation

By utilizing the delocalized correlation of entangled states in quantum information theory, a novel method on acknowledgments of quantum information among three-party is presented, and then two three-party quantum network communication protocols based on quantum teleportation are presented, namely, three-party stop-wait quantum communication protocol and three-party selective automatic repeat quantum communication protocol. In the two proposed protocols, the data frames composed of qubits are teleported via three-party quantum teleportation, the two receivers simultaneously receive quantum frames from the sender, and then return quantum acknowledgment frames or quantum negative acknowledgment frames via quantum entanglement channels. The sender simultaneously receives and deals with quantum acknowledgment frames and quantum negative acknowledgment frames from the two receivers, thus the processing delay on returning quantum frames is reduced. And due to the transience of transferring quantum information, the returning of quantum acknowledgment frames and quantum negative acknowledgment frames are completed instantaneously, the proposed protocols reduce the transmission delay and improve the communication efficiency. During the whole course of communications, the classical channels are only used to transmit the measurement message, so the burdens of classical channels are reduced.