Measurement-induced quantum operations on multiphoton states

We investigate how multiphoton quantum states obtained through optical parametric amplification can be manipulated by performing a measurement on a small portion of the output light field. We study in detail how the macroqubit features are modified by varying the amount of extracted information and the strategy adopted at the final measurement stage. At last the obtained results are employed to investigate the possibility of performing a microscopic-macroscopic non-locality test free from auxiliary assumptions.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figure

Entanglement criteria for microscopic-macroscopic systems

We discuss the conclusions that can be drawn on a recent experimental micro-macro entanglement test [F. De Martini, F. Sciarrino, and C. Vitelli, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 253601 (2008). The system under investigation is generated through optical parametric amplification of one photon belonging to an entangled pair. The adopted entanglement criterion makes it possible to infer the presence of entanglement before losses, that occur on the macrostate, under a specific assumption. In particular, an a priori knowledge of the system that generates the micro-macro pair is necessary to exclude a class of separable states that can reproduce the obtained experimental results. Finally, we discuss the feasibility of a micro-macro "genuine" entanglement test on the analyzed system by considering different strategies, which show that in principle a fraction epsilon, proportional to the number of photons that survive the lossy process, of the original entanglement persists in any losses regime.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure

Simulation of noise-assisted transport via optical cavity networks

Recently, the presence of noise has been found to play a key role in assisting the transport of energy and information in complex quantum networks and even in biomolecular systems. Here we propose an experimentally realizable optical network scheme for the demonstration of the basic mechanisms underlying noise-assisted transport. The proposed system consists of a network of coupled quantum optical cavities, injected with a single photon, whose transmission efficiency can be measured. Introducing dephasing in the photon path this system exhibits a characteristic enhancement of the transport efficiency that can be observed with presently available technology.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. New version with more detail

Coherent scattering of a Multiphoton Quantum Superposition by a Mirror-BEC

We present the proposition of an experiment in which the multiphoton quantum superposition consisting of N= 10^5 particles generated by a quantum-injected optical parametric amplifier (QI-OPA), seeded by a single-photon belonging to an EPR entangled pair, is made to interact with a Mirror-BEC shaped as a Bragg interference structure. The overall process will realize a Macroscopic Quantum Superposition (MQS) involving a microscopic single-photon state of polarization entangled with the coherent macroscopic transfer of momentum to the BEC structure, acting in space-like separated distant places.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Quantum-enhanced multiparameter estimation in multiarm interferometers

Quantum metrology is the state-of-the-art measurement technology. It uses quantum resources to enhance the sensitivity of phase estimation beyond what reachable within classical physics. While single parameter estimation theory has been widely investigated, much less is known about the simultaneous estimation of multiple phases, which finds key applications in imaging and sensing. In this manuscript we provide conditions of useful entanglement (among multimode particles, qudits) for multiphase estimation and adapt them to multiarm Mach-Zehnder interferometry. We discuss benchmark multimode Fock states containing useful qudit entanglement and overcoming the sensitivity of separable qudit states in three and four arm Mach-Zehnder-like interferometers - currently within the reach of integrated photonics technology.Comment: 7+3 pages, 4+2 figure

Phase estimation via quantum interferometry for noisy detectors

The sensitivity in optical interferometry is strongly affected by losses during the signal propagation or at the detection stage. The optimal quantum states of the probing signals in the presence of loss were recently found. However, in many cases of practical interest, their associated accuracy is worse than the one obtainable without employing quantum resources (e.g. entanglement and squeezing) but neglecting the detector's loss. Here we detail an experiment that can reach the latter even in the presence of imperfect detectors: it employs a phase-sensitive amplification of the signals after the phase sensing, before the detection. We experimentally demonstrated the feasibility of a phase estimation experiment able to reach its optimal working regime. Since our method uses coherent states as input signals, it is a practical technique that can be used for high-sensitivity interferometry and, in contrast to the optimal strategies, does not require one to have an exact characterization of the loss beforehand.Comment: 4 pages + supplementary information (10 pages), 3 + 4 figure

Schroedinger Cat: Entanglement test in a Micro-Macroscopic system

A Macro-state consisting of N= 3.5 x 10^4 photons in a quantum superposition and entangled with a far apart single-photon state (Micro-state) is generated. Precisely, an entangled photon pair is created by a nonlinear optical process, then one photon of the pair is injected into an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) operating for any input polarization state, i.e. into a phase-covariant cloning machine. Such transformation establishes a connection between the single photon and the multi particle fields. We then demonstrate the non-separability of the bipartite system by adopting a local filtering technique within a positive operator valued measurement.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Experimental sub-Rayleigh resolution by an unseeded high-gain optical parametric amplifier for quantum lithography

Quantum lithography proposes to adopt entangled quantum states in order to increase resolution in interferometry. In the present paper we experimentally demonstrate that the output of a high-gain optical parametric amplifier can be intense yet exhibits quantum features, namely, sub-Rayleigh fringes, as proposed by Agarwal et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1389 (2001)). We investigate multiphoton states generated by a high-gain optical parametric amplifier operating with a quantum vacuum input for a gain values up to 2.5. The visibility has then been increased by means of three-photon absorption. The present article opens interesting perspectives for the implementation of such an advanced interferometrical setup.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figure

Experimental Scattershot Boson Sampling

Boson Sampling is a computational task strongly believed to be hard for classical computers, but efficiently solvable by orchestrated bosonic interference in a specialised quantum computer. Current experimental schemes, however, are still insufficient for a convincing demonstration of the advantage of quantum over classical computation. A new variation of this task, Scattershot Boson Sampling, leads to an exponential increase in speed of the quantum device, using a larger number of photon sources based on parametric downconversion. This is achieved by having multiple heralded single photons being sent, shot by shot, into different random input ports of the interferometer. Here we report the first Scattershot Boson Sampling experiments, where six different photon-pair sources are coupled to integrated photonic circuits. We employ recently proposed statistical tools to analyse our experimental data, providing strong evidence that our photonic quantum simulator works as expected. This approach represents an important leap toward a convincing experimental demonstration of the quantum computational supremacy.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures (plus Supplementary Materials, 14 pages, 8 figures