Detecting topological entanglement entropy in a lattice of quantum harmonic oscillators

The Kitaev surface code model is the most studied example of a topologically ordered phase and typically involves four-spin interactions on a two-dimensional surface. A universal signature of this phase is topological entanglement entropy (TEE), but due to low signal to noise, it is extremely difficult to observe in these systems, and one usually resorts to measuring anyonic statistics of excitations or non-local string operators to reveal the order. We describe a continuous-variable analog to the surface code using quantum harmonic oscillators on a two-dimensional lattice, which has the distinctive property of needing only two-body nearest-neighbor interactions for its creation. Though such a model is gapless, it satisfies an area law and the ground state can be simply prepared by measurements on a finitely squeezed and gapped two-dimensional cluster-state without topological order. Asymptotically, the continuous variable surface code TEE grows linearly with the squeezing parameter and a recently discovered non-local quantity, the topological logarithmic negativity, behaves analogously. We also show that the mixed-state generalization of the TEE, the topological mutual information, is robust to some forms of state preparation error and can be detected simply using single-mode quadrature measurements. Finally, we discuss scalable implementation of these methods using optical and circuit-QED technology

Two-photon quantum walks in an elliptical direct-write waveguide array

Integrated optics provides an ideal test bed for the emulation of quantum systems via continuous-time quantum walks. Here we study the evolution of two-photon states in an elliptic array of waveguides. We characterise the photonic chip via coherent-light tomography and use the results to predict distinct differences between temporally indistinguishable and distinguishable two-photon inputs which we then compare with experimental observations. Our work highlights the feasibility for emulation of coherent quantum phenomena in three-dimensional waveguide structures.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Continuous- and discrete-time quantum walks with non-classical two-photon inputs

We present two-photon continuous- and discrete-time quantum walks, respectively implemented in an integrated coupled waveguide array and a polarization-based beam-displacer network. We observe distinctly non-classical signatures, constituting progress towards quantum simulation capabilities