Complete hyperentangled-Bell-state analysis for quantum communication

It is impossible to unambiguously distinguish the four Bell states in polarization, resorting to linear optical elements only. Recently, the hyperentangled Bell state, the simultaneous entanglement in more than one degree of freedom, has been used to assist in the complete Bell-state analysis of the four Bell states. However, if the additional degree of freedom is qubitlike, one can only distinguish 7 from the group of 16 states. Here we present a way to distinguish the hyperentangled Bell states completely with the help of cross-Kerr nonlinearity. Also, we discuss its application in the quantum teleportation of a particle in an unknown state in two different degrees of freedom and in the entanglement swapping of hyperentangled states. These applications will increase the channel capacity of long-distance quantum communication.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Efficient polarization entanglement purification based on parametric down-conversion sources with cross-Kerr nonlinearity

We present a way for entanglement purification based on two parametric down-conversion (PDC) sources with cross-Kerr nonlinearities. It is comprised of two processes. The first one is a primary entanglement purification protocol for PDC sources with nondestructive quantum nondemolition (QND) detectors by transferring the spatial entanglement of photon pairs to their polarization. In this time, the QND detectors act as the role of controlled-not (CNot) gates. Also they can distinguish the photon number of the spatial modes, which provides a good way for the next process to purify the entanglement of the photon pairs kept more. In the second process for entanglement purification, new QND detectors are designed to act as the role of CNot gates. This protocol has the advantage of high yield and it requires neither CNot gates based on linear optical elements nor sophisticated single-photon detectors, which makes it more convenient in practical applications.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure