基于压缩光的量子精密测量

对任何物理量的测量都有一定的噪声, 经典测量所能达到的最小噪声一般称为散粒噪声, 对应着测量的标准量子极限. 利用压缩光可以突破标准量子极限, 从而提高测量精度. 本文介绍了压缩态光场用于突破标准量子极限的基本原理, 以及压缩态光场在相位测量、光学横向小位移及倾斜测量、磁场测量以及时钟同步等精密测量领域的应用和最新进展.     

Optimized double-well quantum interferometry with Gaussian squeezed states

A Mach-Zender interferometer with a Gaussian number-difference squeezed input state can exhibit sub-shot-noise phase resolution over a large phase interval. We derive the optimal level of squeezing for a given phase interval Deltatheta{0} and particle number N. We then propose an adaptive measurement sequence in which the amount of squeezing is increased with each measurement. With this scheme, any phase on (-Deltatheta{0},Deltatheta{0}) can be measured with a precision of 3.5/N, requiring only 2-4 measurements, provided only that Ntan(Deltatheta{0})<10{40}. In a double-well Bose-Einstein condensate, the optimized input states can be created by adiabatic manipulation of the ground state.     

Generating Multi-particle Entangled State with Matter-Wave Interferometer

We put forward a realizable scheme for generating multi-particle entangled state with matter-wave interferometer, where the entangled properties are characterized by spin squeezing parameter and the reciprocal of the mean quantum Fisher information per particle (RMQFIP). The multi-particle entangled state can be generated by adjusting phase difference between two input ports of the interferometer and the better entanglement can be achieved by increasing the number of the total particles.     

Enhanced phase sensitivity of an SU(1,1) interferometer with displaced squeezed vacuum light

We study the phase sensitivity of an SU(1,1) interferometer with two input beams in the displaced squeezed vacuum state and the coherent state, respectively. We find that there exists an optimal squeezing fraction of the displaced squeezed vacuum state that optimizes the phase sensitivity. We also examine the effects of some factors, including the loss, mean photon number of the input beams and amplitude gain of the optical parameter amplifiers, on the optimal squeezing fraction so that we can choose the optimal values to enhance the phase sensitivity.     

高灵敏度的量子迈克耳孙干涉仪

迈克耳孙干涉仪不仅可以用来研究物理学的基本问题,而且能够用于精密测量,比如引力波信号的测量.因此,构建高灵敏度的迈克耳孙干涉仪是实现微弱信号测量的关键.目前,人们利用压缩态可以降低迈克耳孙干涉仪的噪声;通过光学四波混频过程能够放大马赫·曾德尔干涉仪中的相位信号,从而提高干涉仪的信噪比和灵敏度.本文研究了一种用于高灵敏度相位测量的量子迈克耳孙干涉仪.在迈克耳孙干涉仪中,利用非简并光学参量放大器取代干涉仪中的线性光学分束器;并且将压缩态注入干涉仪的真空通道,可以得到高信噪比和高灵敏度的干涉仪.由于存在不可避免的光学损耗,分析了迈克耳孙干涉仪内部和外部的损耗对相位测量灵敏度的影响.通过理论计算研究了干涉仪的相位测量灵敏度随系统参数的变化关系,得到了高灵敏度的相位测量量子迈克耳孙干涉仪的实现条件,为用于精密测量的干涉仪的设计提供了直接参考.     

Super-sensitive phase estimation with coherent boosted light using parity measurements

We consider a passive and active hybrid interferometer for phase estimation, which can reach the sub-shot-noise limit in phase sensitivity with only the cheapest coherent sources. This scheme is formed by adding an optical parametric amplifier before a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. It is shown that our hybrid protocol can obtain a better quantum Cramer-Rao bound than the pure active(e.g., SU(1,1)) interferometer, and this precision can be reached by implementing the parity measurements. Furthermore, we also draw a detailed comparison between our scheme and the scheme suggested by Caves[Phys. Rev. D 23 1693(1981)], and it is found that the optimal phase sensitivity gain obtained in our scheme is always larger than that in Caves' scheme.     

Storage of spin squeezing in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate

A simple scheme for storage of spin squeezing in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate is investigated by considering rapidly turning-off the external field at a time that maximal spin squeezing occurs. We show that strong reduction of spin fluctuation can be maintained in a nearly fixed direction. We explain the underlying physics using the phase model and present analytical expressions of the maximal-squeezing time and the corresponding squeezing parameter.     

Optimal sideband-squeezing in the resonance fluorescence of a two-level atom

The quantum fluctuation spectra of phase quadratures of the fluorescent light from a coherently driven two-level atom damping in a common vacuum is investigated. We find that by optimally choosing the Rabi frequency of the driving field, detuning between the atom and the driving field, and phase of the local oscillator the strong sideband squeezing in the spectrum of the optimal phase quadrature can be created and the degree of squeezing in the sidebands can reach about 56%.     

Spin nematics and magnetization plateau transition in anisotropic kagome magnets

We study S=1 kagome antiferromagnets with an isotropic Heisenberg exchange J and strong easy-axis single-ion anisotropy D. For D>J, the low-energy physics can be described by an effective S=1/2 XXZ model with antiferromagnetic Jz approximately J and ferromagnetic J perpendicular approximately J2/D. Exploiting this connection, we argue that nontrivial ordering into a "spin-nematic" occurs whenever D dominates over J, and discuss its experimental signatures. We also study a magnetic field induced transition to a magnetization plateau state at magnetization 1/3 which breaks lattice translation symmetry due to ordering of the Sz and occupies a lobe in the B/Jz-Jz/J perpendicular phase diagram.     

Coherent control of vacuum squeezing in the gravitational-wave detection band

We propose and demonstrate a coherent control scheme for stable phase locking of squeezed vacuum fields. We focus on sideband fields at frequencies from 10 Hz to 10 kHz, which is a frequency regime of particular interest in gravitational-wave detection and for which conventional control schemes have failed so far. A vacuum field with broadband squeezing covering this entire band was produced using optical parametric oscillation and characterized with balanced homodyne detection. The system was stably controlled over long periods utilizing two coherent but frequency shifted control fields. In order to demonstrate the performance of our setup the squeezed field was used for a nonclassical sensitivity improvement of a Michelson interferometer at audio frequencies.     

Information Entropy Squeezing for a Atom in Mode-Mode Competition System

The entropy squeezing properties for a two-level atom interacting with a two-mode field via two different competing transitions are investigated from a quantum information point of view. The influences of the initial state of the system and the relative coupling strength between the atom and the field on the atomic information entropy squeezing are discussed. Our results show that the squeezed direction and the frequency of the information entropy squeezing can be controlled by choosing the phase of the atom dipole and the relative competing strength of atom-field, respectively. We find that, under the same condition, no atomic variance squeezing is predicted from the HUR while optimal entropy squeezing is obtained from the EUR, so the quantum information entropy is a remarkable precision measure for the atomic squeezing in the considered system.     

Optimal states and almost optimal adaptive measurements for quantum interferometry

We derive the optimal N-photon two-mode input state for obtaining an estimate straight phi of the phase difference between two arms of an interferometer. For an optimal measurement [B. C. Sanders and G. J. Milburn, Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 2944 (1995)], it yields a variance (Deltastraight phi)(2) approximately pi(2)/N2, compared to O(N-1) or O(N-1/2) for states considered by previous authors. Such a measurement cannot be realized by counting photons in the interferometer outputs. However, we introduce an adaptive measurement scheme that can be thus realized, and show that it yields a variance in straight phi very close to that from an optimal measurement.     

Magneto-optic fiber Sagnac modulator based on magnetic fluids

A magneto-optic modulator with a magnetic fluid film inserted into an optical fiber Sagnac interferometer is proposed. The magnetic fluid exhibits variable birefringence and Faraday effect under external magnetic field that will lead to a phase difference and polarization state rotation in the Sagnac interferometer. As a result, the intensity of the output light is modulated under the external magnetic field. Moreover, the modulator has a high extinction ratio and can easily be integrated in a single-mode fiber system. The performance of the modulator is not affected by ambient temperature variation from room temperature to 40 °C.     

量子干涉效应对原子共振荧光非经典特性的影响

研究了两个自发辐射路径之间的量子干涉效应对V型三能级原子压缩谱和光子反聚束效应的影响 .结果表明 ,量子干涉可以加强压缩效应和展宽出现压缩的相位角分量的范围 ,但却会减弱反聚束效应.Phase-dependent squeezing spectrum and photon antibunching of resonance fluorescence from a three-level V-type atom driven by a coherent field are investigated. We show that for weak excitation intensities quantum interference can greatly enhance squeezing and change the phase quadrature at which the maximum squeezing occurs. We also notice that the maximum squeezing can appear not only in either the in-phase or the out-of-phase quadrature but also in any phase quadrature, and at which phase quadrature...     

Generation of strongly squeezed states for a cavity field with a single atom

We propose a scheme to realize strong squeezing for a cavity field with a single three-level atom. In the scheme the atom is sent through the cavity initially filled with a coherent field. The atom dispersively interacts with the cavity field, which is displaced by a microwave resource during the interaction. Then, a selective measurement on the atom collapses the field to a superposition of an even coherent state with a vacuum state, which exhibits strong squeezing. The scheme can also be generalized to the two-mode case.     

Optical phase estimation in the presence of phase diffusion

The measurement problem for the optical phase has been traditionally attacked for noiseless schemes or in the presence of amplitude or detection noise. Here we address the estimation of phase in the presence of phase diffusion and evaluate the ultimate quantum limits to precision for phase-shifted Gaussian states. We look for the optimal detection scheme and derive approximate scaling laws for the quantum Fisher information and the optimal squeezing fraction in terms of the total energy and the amount of noise. We also find that homodyne detection is a nearly optimal detection scheme in the limit of very small and large noise.     

Squeezed States of Magnons and Phonons in a Cavity Magnomechanical System with a Microwave Parametric Amplifier

The cavity magnomechanical system has become a promising platform for preparing macroscopic quantum states. In this work, a scheme for generating the steady-state quadrature squeezing of the magnon and phonon modes in a cavity magnomechanical system is presented. This scheme uses a degenerate microwave parametric amplifier (PA) inside the microwave cavity. It is found that the squeezing of the cavity mode produced by the PA can be transferred to the magnon mode due to the cavity-magnon beamsplitter-like interaction, and the squeezing of the magnon mode can be further transferred to the phonon mode due to the magnon-phonon beamsplitter-like interaction induced by driving the magnon mode with a red-detuned microwave field. The effects of the parametric gain and phase of the PA, the magnon-cavity coupling strength, the power of the magnon drive, and the temperature of the environment on the squeezing of the magnon and phonon modes have been evaluated. The results show that the squeezing of the magnon and phonon modes is robust against the temperature of the environment.     

Mach-Zehnder interferometry at the Heisenberg limit with coherent and squeezed-vacuum light

We show that the phase sensitivity Deltatheta of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer illuminated by a coherent state in one input port and a squeezed-vacuum state in the other port is (i) independent of the true value of the phase shift and (ii) can reach the Heisenberg limit Deltatheta approximately 1/N(T), where N(T) is the average number of input particles. We also demonstrate that the Cramer-Rao lower bound of phase sensitivity, Deltatheta approximately 1/square root[|alpha|(2)e(2r)+sinh(2)r], can be saturated for arbitrary values of the squeezing parameter r and the amplitude of the coherent mode alpha by using a Bayesian phase inference protocol.     

Enhanced phase sensitivity with a nonconventional interferometer and nonlinear phase shifter

We propose a theoretical scheme of an enhanced phase sensitivity by introducing a nonlinear phase shifter to the nonconventional interferometer consisting of a balanced beam splitter (BBS) and an optical parameter amplifier (OPA), a modified nonlinear interferometer (MNI). Then we use coherent state and even coherent state as inputs and homodyne detection at one output port of the MNI for phase sensitivity, both without and with photon losses. We find that the nonlinear phase shifter can not only improve phase sensitivity, but also significantly resist the decoherence from photon losses. In comparison to both the BBS+OPA scheme with linear phase shifter and the traditional Mach–Zehnder interferometer with nonlinear one, the phase sensitivity of the MNI scheme shows the best performance. It is interesting that the nonlinear phase shifter can stimulate potential of the OPA, although there is no improvement in signal-to-noise ratio beyond standard quantum limit for the BBS+OPA scheme with a linear phase shifter.     

Development of neutron spin phase contrast imaging

We present an imaging technique utilizing a neutron spin interferometer. Neutron spin phase contrast is achieved in spatial resolved measurements of the phase difference between two superposed neutron spin states introduced by passing through a magnetic sample. Since the phase difference of spin states parallel and anti-parallel to the magnetic field is proportional to the magnetic field integral, it is possible to record images of the internal magnetic field distribution of the sample. Taking advantage of high transmission probabilities, neutron spin phase contrast provides non-destructive images of internal magnetic structures.