Two independent photon pairs versus four-photon entangled states in parametric down conversion

We study the physics of four-photon states generated in spontaneous parametric down-conversion with a pulsed pump field. In the limit where the coherence time of the photons t_c is much shorter than the duration of the pump pulse Delta t, the four photons can be described as two independent pairs. In the opposite limit, the four photons are in a four-particle entangled state. Any intermediate case can be characterized by a single parameter chi, which is a function of t_c/Delta t. We present a direct measurement of chi through a simple experimental setup. The full theoretical analysis is also provided.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, submitte

Lifting Bell inequalities

A Bell inequality defined for a specific experimental configuration can always be extended to a situation involving more observers, measurement settings, or measurement outcomes. In this article, such "liftings" of Bell inequalities are studied. It is shown that if the original inequality defines a facet of the polytope of local joint outcome probabilities then the lifted one also defines a facet of the more complex polytope

Quantum noise limited interferometric measurement of atomic noise: towards spin squeezing on the Cs clock transition

We investigate theoretically and experimentally a nondestructive interferometric measurement of the state population of an ensemble of laser cooled and trapped atoms. This study is a step towards generation of (pseudo-) spin squeezing of cold atoms targeted at the improvement of the Caesium clock performance beyond the limit set by the quantum projection noise of atoms. We calculate the phase shift and the quantum noise of a near resonant optical probe pulse propagating through a cloud of cold 133Cs atoms. We analyze the figure of merit for a quantum non-demolition (QND) measurement of the collective pseudo-spin and show that it can be expressed simply as a product of the ensemble optical density and the pulse integrated rate of the spontaneous emission caused by the off-resonant probe light. Based on this, we propose a protocol for the sequence of operations required to generate and utilize spin squeezing for the improved atomic clock performance via a QND measurement on the probe light. In the experimental part we demonstrate that the interferometric measurement of the atomic population can reach the sensitivity of the order of N_at^1/2 in a cloud of N_at cold atoms, which is an important benchmark towards the experimental realisation of the theoretically analyzed protocol.Comment: 12 pages and 9 figures, accepted to Physical Review

How source/collector placement and subsurface absorbing layer affect time-resolved and phase/modulation-resolved photon migration

The time-resolved reflectance of photons from a homogeneous tissue was modeled using a Monte Carlo simulation. The data was then converted by fast Fourier transform (FFT) into the frequency domain. In the frequency domain, the phase, Φ, and modulation, M, of collected light from a frequency-modulated light source was determined. A comparison of Monte Carlo and diffusion theory was made for various separation distances between the source and collector on the tissue surface. The results showed that Monte Carlo and diffusion theory agreed in the time domain only for times larger than 500 ps after injection of an impulse of photons. In the frequency domain, Monte Carlo and diffusion theory agreed only if the probe separation, r, was at least 2 cm apart for µ_s' = µ_s(1 - g) = 5 cm^(-1), or in dimension less units rµ_s' > 10. The effect of buried absorbed is also tested in the time and frequency domains. A semi-infinite volume of absorber is placed at 0, 3 mm, 6 mm, or (infinity) from the surface of a nonabsorbing tissue. The presence of a deep absorber on the time and frequency domain data show that attenuation of longer pathlength photons causes the phase of collected photons to reduce and the modulation of collected photons to increase. Both effects are indicative of the net shorter pathlength of the ensemble of collected photons