868 research outputs found
Twin-photon techniques for photo-detector calibration
The aim of this review paper is to enlighten some recent progresses in
quantum optical metrology in the part of quantum efficiency measurements of
photo-detectors performed with bi-photon states. The intrinsic correlated
nature of entangled photons from Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion
phenomenon has opened wide horizons to a new approach for the absolute
measurement of photo-detector quantum efficiency, outgoing the requirement for
conventional standards of optical radiation; in particular the simultaneous
feature of the creation of conjugated photons led to a well known technique of
coincidence measurement, deeply understood and implemented for standard uses.
On the other hand, based on manipulation of entanglement developed for Quantum
Information protocols implementations, a new method has been proposed for
quantum efficiency measurement, exploiting polarisation entanglement in
addition to energy-momentum and time ones, that is based on conditioned
polarisation state manipulation. In this review, after a general discussion on
absolute photo-detector calibration, we compare these different methods, in
order to give an accurate operational sketch of the absolute quantum efficiency
measurement state of the art
Experimental realization of a low-noise heralded single photon source
We present a heralded single-photon source with a much lower level of
unwanted background photons in the output channel by using the herald photon to
control a shutter in the heralded channel. The shutter is implemented using a
simple field programable gate array controlled optical switch.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Toward third order ghost imaging with thermal light
Recently it has been suggested that an enhancement in the visibility of ghost
images obtained with thermal light can be achieved exploiting higher order
correlations [3]. This paper reports on the status of an higher order ghost
imaging experiment carried on at INRIM labs exploiting a pseudo-thermal source
and a CCD camera.Comment: To be published in Proceedings of Recent advances in Foundations of
Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Informatio
Generation of different Bell states within the SPDC phase-matching bandwidth
We study the frequency-angular lineshape for a phase-matched nonlinear
process producing entangled states and show that there is a continuous variety
of maximally-entangled states generated for different mismatch values within
the natural bandwidth. Detailed considerations are made for two specific
methods of polarization entanglement preparation, based on type-II spontaneous
parametric down-conversion (SPDC) and on SPDC in two subsequent type-I crystals
producing orthogonally polarized photon pairs. It turns out that different Bell
states are produced at the center of the SPDC line and on its slopes,
corresponding to about half-maximum intensity level. These Bell states can be
filtered out by either frequency selection or angular selection, or both. Our
theoretical calculations are confirmed by a series of experiments, performed
for the two above-mentioned schemes of producing polarization-entangled photon
pairs and with two kinds of measurements: frequency-selective and
angular-selective.Comment: submitted for publicatio
Revealing interference by continuous variable discordant states
In general, a pair of uncorrelated Gaussian states mixed in a beam splitter
produces a correlated state at the output. However, when the inputs are
identical Gaussian states the output state is equal to the input, and no
correlations appear, as the interference had not taken place. On the other
hand, since physical phenomena do have observable effects, and the beam
splitter is there, a question arises on how to reveal the interference between
the two beams. We prove theoretically and demonstrate experimentally that this
is possible if at least one of the two beams is prepared in a discordant, i.e.
Gaussian correlated, state with a third beam. We also apply the same technique
to reveal the erasure of polarization information. Our experiments involves
thermal states and the results show that Gaussian discordant states, even when
they show a positive Glauber P-function, may be useful to achieve specific
tasks.Comment: published versio
Towards a new determination of the QCD Lambda parameter from running couplings in the three-flavour theory
We review our new strategy and current status towards a high precision
computation of the Lambda parameter from three-flavour simulations in QCD. To
reach this goal we combine specific advantages of the Schr\"odinger functional
and gradient flow couplings.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures; Proceedings of the 32nd International Symposium
on Lattice Field Theory; 23-28 June, 2014, Columbia University, New Yor
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