Continuous-variable teleportation: a new look

In contrast to discrete-variable teleportation, a quantum state is imperfectly transferred from a sender to a remote receiver in a continuous-variable setting. We recall the ingenious scheme proposed by Braunstein and Kimble for teleporting a one-mode state of the quantum radiation field. By analyzing this protocol, we have previously proven the factorization of the characteristic function of the output state. This indicates that teleportation is a noisy process that alters, to some extent, the input state. Teleportation with a two-mode Gaussian EPR state can be described in terms of the superposition of a distorting field with the input one. Here we analyze the one-mode Gaussian distorting-field state. Some of its most important properties are determined by the statistics of a positive EPR operator in the two-mode Gaussian resource state. We finally examine the fidelity of teleportation of a coherent state when using an arbitrary resource state.Comment: Contribution to the special issue of Romanian Journal of Physics dedicated to the centenary of Serban Titeica (1908-1985), the founder of the school of theoretical physics in Romani

Continuous-variable teleportation in the characteristic-function description

We give a description of the continuous-variable teleportation protocol in terms of the characteristic functions of the quantum states involved. The Braunstein--Kimble protocol is written for an unbalanced homodyne measurement and arbitrary input and resource states. We show that the output of the protocol is a superposition between the input one-mode field and a classical one induced by measurement and classical communication. We choose to describe the input state distortion through teleportation by the average photon number of the measurement-induced field. Only in the case of symmetric resource states we find a relation between the optimal added noise and the minimal EPR correlations used to define inseparability.Comment: 12 page

Bures distance as a measure of entanglement for symmetric two-mode Gaussian states

We evaluate a Gaussian entanglement measure for a symmetric two-mode Gaussian state of the quantum electromagnetic field in terms of its Bures distance to the set of all separable Gaussian states. The required minimization procedure was considerably simplified by using the remarkable properties of the Uhlmann fidelity as well as the standard form II of the covariance matrix of a symmetric state. Our result for the Gaussian degree of entanglement measured by the Bures distance depends only on the smallest symplectic eigenvalue of the covariance matrix of the partially transposed density operator. It is thus consistent to the exact expression of the entanglement of formation for symmetric two-mode Gaussian states. This non-trivial agreement is specific to the Bures metric.Comment: published versio

Optimal purifications and fidelity for displaced thermal states

We evaluate the Uhlmann fidelity between two one-mode displaced thermal states as the maximal probability transition between appropriate purifications of the given states. The optimal purifications defining the fidelity are proved to be two-mode displaced Gaussian states.Comment: published versio