Experimental state tomography of itinerant single microwave photons

A wide range of experiments studying microwave photons localized in superconducting cavities have made important contributions to our understanding of the quantum properties of radiation. Propagating microwave photons, however, have so far been studied much less intensely. Here we present measurements in which we reconstruct the quantum state of itinerant single photon Fock states and their superposition with the vacuum by analyzing moments of the measured amplitude distribution up to fourth order. Using linear amplifiers and quadrature amplitude detectors, we have developed efficient methods to separate the detected single photon signal from the noise added by the amplifier. From our measurement data we have also reconstructed the corresponding Wigner function.     

Shaping an itinerant quantum field into a multimode squeezed vacuum by dissipation

We show that inducing sidebands in the emission of a single emitter into a one-dimensional waveguide, together with a dissipative repumping process, a photon field is cooled down to a multimode squeezed vacuum. Our method does not require being in the strong coupling regime, works with a continuum of propagating field modes, and leads to sources of tunable multimode squeezed light in circuit-QED systems.     

Quantum reconstruction of an intense polarization squeezed optical state

We perform a reconstruction of the polarization sector of the density matrix of an intense polarization squeezed beam starting from a complete set of Stokes measurements. By using an appropriate quasidistribution, we map this onto the Poincaré space, providing a full quantum mechanical characterization of the measured polarization state.     

Quantum interferometry via a coherent state mixed with a squeezed number state

We theoretically investigate the phase sensitivity with parity measurement on a Mach–Zehnder interferometer with a coherent state combined with a squeezed number state. Within a constraint on the total mean photon number, we find, via parity measurement, that the mixing of a coherent state and squeezed number state can give better phase sensitivity than mixing a coherent state and squeezed vacuum state when the phase shift deviates from the optimal phase φ= 0. In addition,we show that the classical Fisher information for parity measurement saturates the quantum Fisher information when the phase shift approaches to zero. Thus, the quantum Crame′r–Rao bound can be reached via the parity measurement in the case of φ= 0.     

Quantum multiparameter estimation with multi-mode photon catalysis entangled squeezed state

We propose a method to generate the multi-mode entangled catalysis squeezed vacuum states (MECSVS) by embedding the cross-Kerr nonlinear medium into the Mach−Zehnder interferometer. This method realizes the exchange of quantum states between different modes based on Fredkin gate. In addition, we study the MECSVS as the probe state of multi-arm optical interferometer to realize multi-phase simultaneous estimation. The results show that the quantum Cramer−Rao bound (QCRB) of phase estimation can be improved by increasing the number of catalytic photons or decreasing the transmissivity of the optical beam splitter using for photon catalysis. In addition, we also show that even if there is photon loss, the QCRB of our photon catalysis scheme is lower than that of the ideal entangled squeezed vacuum states (ESVS), which shows that by performing the photon catalytic operation is more robust against photon loss than that without the catalytic operation. The results here can find applications in quantum metrology for multiparatmeter estimation.     

Time evolution of a squeezed chaotic field in an amplitude damping channel when used as a generating field for a squeezed number state

We investigate how an optical squeezed chaotic field(SCF) evolves in an amplitude dissipation channel. We have used the integration within ordered product of operators technique to derive its evolution law. We also show that the density operator of SCF can be viewed as a generating field of the squeezed number state.     

Quantum state tomography of dissociating molecules

Using tomographic reconstruction we determine the complete internuclear quantum state, represented by the Wigner function, of a dissociating I2 molecule based on femtosecond time resolved position and momentum distributions of the atomic fragments. The experimental data are recorded by timed ionization of the photofragments with an intense 20 fs laser pulse. Our reconstruction method, which relies on Jaynes's maximum entropy principle, will also be applicable to time resolved position or momentum data obtained with other experimental techniques.     

Detecting itinerant single microwave photons

Single-photon detectors are fundamental tools of investigation in quantum optics and play a central role in measurement theory and quantum informatics. Photodetectors based on different technologies exist at optical frequencies and much effort is currently being spent on pushing their efficiencies to meet the demands coming from the quantum computing and quantum communication proposals. In the microwave regime, however, a single-photon detector has remained elusive, although several theoretical proposals have been put forth. In this article, we review these recent proposals, especially focusing on non-destructive detectors of propagating microwave photons. These detection schemes using superconducting artificial atoms can reach detection efficiencies of 90% with the existing technologies and are ripe for experimental investigations.     

Quantum state tomography via compressed sensing

We establish methods for quantum state tomography based on compressed sensing. These methods are specialized for quantum states that are fairly pure, and they offer a significant performance improvement on large quantum systems. In particular, they are able to reconstruct an unknown density matrix of dimension d and rank r using O(rdlog2d) measurement settings, compared to standard methods that require d2 settings. Our methods have several features that make them amenable to experimental implementation: they require only simple Pauli measurements, use fast convex optimization, are stable against noise, and can be applied to states that are only approximately low rank. The acquired data can be used to certify that the state is indeed close to pure, so no a priori assumptions are needed.     

Quantum state tomography with array detectors

I propose a method for measuring the quantum state of an optical field that occupies a mode having a complicated spatial structure. The technique uses array detectors and a single, plane-wave local oscillator beam. The advantage of using array detectors is that the local oscillator is not mode matched to the field being measured, yet the deleterious effects of this mismatch on the effective detection efficiency are greatly reduced compared to using single detectors. Indeed, when the spatial mode of the signal field is describable by a real function, the effective mode-matching efficiency is unity.     

Quantum speed limit for the maximum coherent state under the squeezed environment

The quantum speed limit time for quantum system under squeezed environment is studied. We consider two typical models, the damped Jaynes–Cummings model and the dephasing model. For the damped Jaynes–Cummings model under squeezed environment, we find that the quantum speed limit time becomes larger with the squeezed parameter r increasing and indicates symmetry about the phase parameter value θ = π. Meanwhile, the quantum speed limit time can also be influenced by the coupling strength between the system and environment. However, the quantum speed limit time for the dephasing model is determined by the dephasing rate and the boundary of acceleration region that interacting with vacuum reservoir can be broken when the squeezed environment parameters are appropriately chosen.     

Quantum critical point of an itinerant antiferromagnet in a heavy fermion

A quantum critical point of the heavy fermion Ce(Ru(1-x)Rh(x))2Si2, (x = 0,0.03) has been studied by single-crystalline neutron scattering. By accurately measuring the dynamical susceptibility at the antiferromagnetic wave vector k3 = 0.35c*, we have shown that the inverse energy width gamma(k3), i.e., the inverse correlation time, depends on temperature as gamma(k3) = c1 + c2T((3/2)+/-0.1), where c1 and c2 are x dependent constants, in a low temperature range. This critical exponent 3/2 +/- 0.1 proves that the quantum critical point is controlled by that of the itinerant antiferromagnet.     

Quantum state tomography for generic pure states

We examine the problem of whether a multipartite pure quantum state can be uniquely determined by its reduced density matrices.We show that a generic pure state in three party Hilbert space HA■HB■HC, where dim(HA) = 2 and dim(HB) = dim(HC), can be uniquely determined by its reduced states on subsystems HA■HB and HA■HC. Then, we generalize the conclusion to the case that dim(H_1) 2. As a corollary, we show that a generic N-qudit pure quantum state is uniquely determined by only two of its[(N+1)/2]-particle reduced density matrices. Furthermore,our results indicate a method to uniquely determine a generic N-qudit pure state of dimension D = d~N with only O(D) local measurements, which is an improvement compared to the previous known approach that uses O(D log~2 D) or O(D log D) local measurements.     

压缩真空态中原子与场的量子纠缠和量子discord

在压缩真空库中,研究了原子与场的相互作用下二比特体系的量子discord和量子纠缠的动力学行为.重点分析了原子的初始态系数和压缩真空库的压缩系数对量子纠缠和量子discord的影响.通过数值分析我们得到,随着原子的初始态系数和压缩真空库的压缩系数值的增加,量子纠缠和量子discord都会减小,但量子纠缠比量子discord减小的更快一些.最后研究了在原子的初始态系数和压缩真空库的压缩系数的值相同的情况下,量子discord比量子纠缠存在的时间更长些.     

Quantum homodyne tomography of a two-photon Fock state

We present a continuous-variable experimental analysis of a two-photon Fock state of free-propagating light. This state is obtained from a pulsed nondegenerate parametric amplifier, which produces two intensity-correlated twin beams. Counting two photons in one beam projects the other beam in the desired two-photon Fock state, which is analyzed by using a pulsed homodyne detection. The Wigner function of the measured state is clearly negative. We developed a detailed analytic model which allows a fast and efficient analysis of the experimental results.     

Quantum memory for squeezed light

We produce a 600-ns pulse of 1.86-dB squeezed vacuum at 795 nm in an optical parametric amplifier and store it in a rubidium vapor cell for 1 mus using electromagnetically induced transparency. The recovered pulse, analyzed using time-domain homodyne tomography, exhibits up to 0.21+/-0.04 dB of squeezing. We identify the factors leading to the degradation of squeezing and investigate the phase evolution of the atomic coherence during the storage interval.     

Quantum critical behavior of clean itinerant ferromagnets

We consider the quantum ferromagnetic transition at zero temperature in clean itinerant electron systems. We find that the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson order parameter field theory breaks down since the electron-electron interaction leads to singular coupling constants in the Landau- Ginzburg-Wilson functional. These couplings generate an effective long-range interaction between the spin or order parameter fluctuations of the form 1 <r ² d?1, with d the spatial dimension. This leads to unusual scaling behavior at the quantum critical point in 1 < d ≤ 3, which we determine exactly. We also discuss the quantum-to-classical crossover at small but finite temperatures, which is characterized by the appearance of multiple temperature scales. A comparison with recent results on disordered itinerant ferromagnets is given.     

Quantum metrology with two-mode squeezed thermal state: Parity detection and phase sensitivity

Based on the Wigner-function method, we investigate the parity detection and phase sensitivity in a Mach–Zehnder interferometer(MZI) with two-mode squeezed thermal state(TMSTS). Using the classical transformation relation of the MZI, we derive the input–output Wigner functions and then obtain the explicit expressions of parity and phase sensitivity.The results from the numerical calculation show that supersensitivity can be reached only if the input TMSTS have a large number photons.