49 research outputs found
Markov chain aggregation and its application to rule-based modelling
Rule-based modelling allows to represent molecular interactions in a compact
and natural way. The underlying molecular dynamics, by the laws of stochastic
chemical kinetics, behaves as a continuous-time Markov chain. However, this
Markov chain enumerates all possible reaction mixtures, rendering the analysis
of the chain computationally demanding and often prohibitive in practice. We
here describe how it is possible to efficiently find a smaller, aggregate
chain, which preserves certain properties of the original one. Formal methods
and lumpability notions are used to define algorithms for automated and
efficient construction of such smaller chains (without ever constructing the
original ones). We here illustrate the method on an example and we discuss the
applicability of the method in the context of modelling large signalling
pathways
Experimental demonstration of quantum memory for light
The information carrier of today's communications, a weak pulse of light, is
an intrinsically quantum object. As a consequence, complete information about
the pulse cannot, even in principle, be perfectly recorded in a classical
memory. In the field of quantum information this has led to a long standing
challenge: how to achieve a high-fidelity transfer of an independently prepared
quantum state of light onto the atomic quantum state? Here we propose and
experimentally demonstrate a protocol for such quantum memory based on atomic
ensembles. We demonstrate for the first time a recording of an externally
provided quantum state of light onto the atomic quantum memory with a fidelity
up to 70%, significantly higher than that for the classical recording. Quantum
storage of light is achieved in three steps: an interaction of light with
atoms, the subsequent measurement on the transmitted light, and the feedback
onto the atoms conditioned on the measurement result. Density of recorded
states 33% higher than that for the best classical recording of light on atoms
is achieved. A quantum memory lifetime of up to 4 msec is demonstrated.Comment: 22 pages (double line spacing) incl. supplementary information, 4
figures, accepted for publication in Natur
Quantum Storage of Photonic Entanglement in a Crystal
Entanglement is the fundamental characteristic of quantum physics. Large
experimental efforts are devoted to harness entanglement between various
physical systems. In particular, entanglement between light and material
systems is interesting due to their prospective roles as "flying" and
stationary qubits in future quantum information technologies, such as quantum
repeaters and quantum networks. Here we report the first demonstration of
entanglement between a photon at telecommunication wavelength and a single
collective atomic excitation stored in a crystal. One photon from an
energy-time entangled pair is mapped onto a crystal and then released into a
well-defined spatial mode after a predetermined storage time. The other photon
is at telecommunication wavelength and is sent directly through a 50 m fiber
link to an analyzer. Successful transfer of entanglement to the crystal and
back is proven by a violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH)
inequality by almost three standard deviations (S=2.64+/-0.23). These results
represent an important step towards quantum communication technologies based on
solid-state devices. In particular, our resources pave the way for building
efficient multiplexed quantum repeaters for long-distance quantum networks.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures + supplementary information; fixed typo in ref.
[36
Quantum Interference of Photon Pairs from Two Trapped Atomic Ions
We collect the fluorescence from two trapped atomic ions, and measure quantum
interference between photons emitted from the ions. The interference of two
photons is a crucial component of schemes to entangle atomic qubits based on a
photonic coupling. The ability to preserve the generated entanglement and to
repeat the experiment with the same ions is necessary to implement entangling
quantum gates between atomic qubits, and allows the implementation of protocols
to efficiently scale to larger numbers of atomic qubits.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
A photonic quantum information interface
Quantum communication is the art of transferring quantum states, or quantum
bits of information (qubits), from one place to another. On the fundamental
side, this allows one to distribute entanglement and demonstrate quantum
nonlocality over significant distances. On the more applied side, quantum
cryptography offers, for the first time in human history, a provably secure way
to establish a confidential key between distant partners. Photons represent the
natural flying qubit carriers for quantum communication, and the presence of
telecom optical fibres makes the wavelengths of 1310 and 1550 nm particulary
suitable for distribution over long distances. However, to store and process
quantum information, qubits could be encoded into alkaline atoms that absorb
and emit at around 800 nm wavelength. Hence, future quantum information
networks made of telecom channels and alkaline memories will demand interfaces
able to achieve qubit transfers between these useful wavelengths while
preserving quantum coherence and entanglement. Here we report on a qubit
transfer between photons at 1310 and 710 nm via a nonlinear up-conversion
process with a success probability greater than 5%. In the event of a
successful qubit transfer, we observe strong two-photon interference between
the 710 nm photon and a third photon at 1550 nm, initially entangled with the
1310 nm photon, although they never directly interacted. The corresponding
fidelity is higher than 98%.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
Conditional control of the quantum states of remote atomic memories for quantum networking
Quantum networks hold the promise for revolutionary advances in information
processing with quantum resources distributed over remote locations via
quantum-repeater architectures. Quantum networks are composed of nodes for
storing and processing quantum states, and of channels for transmitting states
between them. The scalability of such networks relies critically on the ability
to perform conditional operations on states stored in separated quantum
memories. Here we report the first implementation of such conditional control
of two atomic memories, located in distinct apparatuses, which results in a
28-fold increase of the probability of simultaneously obtaining a pair of
single photons, relative to the case without conditional control. As a first
application, we demonstrate a high degree of indistinguishability for remotely
generated single photons by the observation of destructive interference of
their wavepackets. Our results demonstrate experimentally a basic principle for
enabling scalable quantum networks, with applications as well to linear optics
quantum computation.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures; Minor corrections. References updated. Published
at Nature Physics 2, Advanced Online Publication of 10/29 (2006
Measurement-Induced Entanglement for Excitation Stored in Remote Atomic Ensembles
A critical requirement for diverse applications in Quantum Information
Science is the capability to disseminate quantum resources over complex quantum
networks. For example, the coherent distribution of entangled quantum states
together with quantum memory to store these states can enable scalable
architectures for quantum computation, communication, and metrology. As a
significant step toward such possibilities, here we report observations of
entanglement between two atomic ensembles located in distinct apparatuses on
different tables. Quantum interference in the detection of a photon emitted by
one of the samples projects the otherwise independent ensembles into an
entangled state with one joint excitation stored remotely in 10^5 atoms at each
site. After a programmable delay, we confirm entanglement by mapping the state
of the atoms to optical fields and by measuring mutual coherences and photon
statistics for these fields. We thereby determine a quantitative lower bound
for the entanglement of the joint state of the ensembles. Our observations
provide a new capability for the distribution and storage of entangled quantum
states, including for scalable quantum communication networks .Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures Submitted for publication on August 31 200
Heralded single photon absorption by a single atom
The emission and absorption of single photons by single atomic particles is a
fundamental limit of matter-light interaction, manifesting its quantum
mechanical nature. At the same time, as a controlled process it is a key
enabling tool for quantum technologies, such as quantum optical information
technology [1, 2] and quantum metrology [3, 4, 5, 6]. Controlling both emission
and absorption will allow implementing quantum networking scenarios [1, 7, 8,
9], where photonic communication of quantum information is interfaced with its
local processing in atoms. In studies of single-photon emission, recent
progress includes control of the shape, bandwidth, frequency, and polarization
of single-photon sources [10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17], and the
demonstration of atom-photon entanglement [18, 19, 20]. Controlled absorption
of a single photon by a single atom is much less investigated; proposals exist
but only very preliminary steps have been taken experimentally such as
detecting the attenuation and phase shift of a weak laser beam by a single atom
[21, 22], and designing an optical system that covers a large fraction of the
full solid angle [23, 24, 25]. Here we report the interaction of single
heralded photons with a single trapped atom. We find strong correlations of the
detection of a heralding photon with a change in the quantum state of the atom
marking absorption of the quantum-correlated heralded photon. In coupling a
single absorber with a quantum light source, our experiment demonstrates
previously unexplored matter-light interaction, while opening up new avenues
towards photon-atom entanglement conversion in quantum technology.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Towards quantum computing with single atoms and optical cavities on atom chips
We report on recent developments in the integration of optical
microresonators into atom chips and describe some fabrication and
implementation challenges. We also review theoretical proposals for quantum
computing with single atoms based on the observation of photons leaking through
the cavity mirrors. The use of measurements to generate entanglement can result
in simpler, more robust and scalable quantum computing architectures. Indeed,
we show that quantum computing with atom-cavity systems is feasible even in the
presence of relatively large spontaneous decay rates and finite photon detector
efficiencies.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure
Cavity Induced Interfacing of Atoms and Light
This chapter introduces cavity-based light-matter quantum interfaces, with a
single atom or ion in strong coupling to a high-finesse optical cavity. We
discuss the deterministic generation of indistinguishable single photons from
these systems; the atom-photon entanglement intractably linked to this process;
and the information encoding using spatio-temporal modes within these photons.
Furthermore, we show how to establish a time-reversal of the aforementioned
emission process to use a coupled atom-cavity system as a quantum memory. Along
the line, we also discuss the performance and characterisation of cavity
photons in elementary linear-optics arrangements with single beam splitters for
quantum-homodyne measurements.Comment: to appear as a book chapter in a compilation "Engineering the
Atom-Photon Interaction" published by Springer in 2015, edited by A.
Predojevic and M. W. Mitchel