Manipulating Transverse Modes of Photons for Quantum Cryptography

Several schemes have been proposed to extend Quantum Key Distribution protocols aiming at improving their security or at providing new physical substrates for qubit implementation. We present a toolbox to jointly create, manipulate and measure qubits stored in polarization and transverse-modes degrees of freedom of single photons. The toolbox includes local operations on single qubits, controlled operations between the two qubits and projective measurements over a wide variety of non-local bases in the four dimensional space of states. We describe how to implement the toolbox to perform an extended version of the BB84 protocol for this Hilbert space (ideally transmitting two key bits per photon). We present the experimental implementation of the measurement scheme both in the regimes of intense light beams and with single photons. Thus, we show the feasibility of implementing the protocol providing an interesting example of a new method for quantum information processing using the polarization and transverse modes of light as qubits.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, 5 table

Role of indistinguishability in interferometric phase estimation

We report a theoretical and experimental study on the role of indistinguishability in the estimation of an interferometric phase. In particular, we show that the quantum Fisher information, which limits the maximum precision achievable in the parameter estimation, increases linearly with respect to the degree of indistinguishability between the input photons in a two-port interferometer, in the ideal case of a pure probe state. We experimentally address the role played by the indistinguishability for the case of two photons entering a polarization-based interferometer, where the degree of indistinguishability is characterized by the overlap between two spatial modes. The experimental results support the fact that, even in the presence of white noise, a quantum enhancement in the interferometric phase estimation can be obtained from a minimum degree of indistinguishability.Fil: Knoll, Laura Tamara. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa. Ministerio de Defensa. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa; ArgentinaFil: Bosyk, Gustavo Martin. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Física La Plata. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Instituto de Física La Plata; Argentina. Università Degli Studi Di Cagliari.; ItaliaFil: López Grande, Ignacio Hernán. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa. Ministerio de Defensa. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa; ArgentinaFil: Larotonda, Miguel Antonio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa. Ministerio de Defensa. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; Argentin

Multiplexing photons with a binary division strategy

We present a scheme to produce clock-synchronized photons from a single parametric downconversion source with a binary division strategy. The time difference between a clock and detections of the herald photons determines the amount of delay that must be imposed to a photon by actively switching different temporal segments, so that all photons emerge from the output with their wavepackets temporally synchronized with the temporal reference. The operation is performed using a binary division configuration which minimizes the passages through switches. Finally, we extend this scheme to the production of many synchronized photons and find expressions for the optimal amount of correction stages as a function of the pair generation rate and the target coherence time. Our results show that, for the generation of this heralded single-photon per output state at an optimized input photon flux, the output rate of our scheme scales essentially with the reciprocal of the target output photon number. With current technology, rates of up to 10^4 synchronized pairs per second could be observed with only 7 correction stages.Fil: Schmiegelow, Christian Tomás. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas para la Defensa. Centro de Investigación en Láseres y Aplicaciones; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa. Ministerio de Defensa. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa; ArgentinaFil: Larotonda, Miguel Antonio. Ministerio de Defensa. Instituto de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas para la Defensa; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa. Ministerio de Defensa. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa; Argentin

Photonic quantum simulator for unbiased phase covariant cloning

We present the results of a linear optics photonic implementation of a quantum circuit that simulates a phase covariant cloner, using two different degrees of freedom of a single photon. We experimentally simulate the action of two mirrored 1 → 2 cloners, each of them biasing the cloned states into opposite regions of the Bloch sphere. We show that by applying a random sequence of these two cloners, an eavesdropper can mitigate the amount of noise added to the original input state and therefore, prepare clones with no bias, but with the same individual fidelity, masking its presence in a quantum key distribution protocol. Input polarization qubit states are cloned into path qubit states of the same photon, which is identified as a potential eavesdropper in a quantum key distribution protocol. The device has the flexibility to produce mirrored versions that optimally clone states on either the northern or southern hemispheres of the Bloch sphere, as well as to simulate optimal and non-optimal cloning machines by tuning the asymmetry on each of the cloning machines.Fil: Knoll, Laura Tamara. Ministerio de Defensa. Instituto de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas para la Defensa; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; ArgentinaFil: López Grande, Ignacio Hernán. Ministerio de Defensa. Instituto de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas para la Defensa; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; ArgentinaFil: Larotonda, Miguel Antonio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Ministerio de Defensa. Instituto de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas para la Defensa; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; Argentin

Dynamics of the diode-pumped Kerr-lens mode-locked Nd:YAG laser

We present a theoretical and experimental study of the dynamics of the diode-pumped Kerr-lens mode-locked Nd:YAG laser. The theoretical approach, which is based on a two-variable Poincaré map, allows the calculation of the pulse parameters with satisfactory accuracy, It is concluded (both theoretically and experimentally) that this laser does not present instabilities, which is an interesting feature for short-pulse laser engineering. We also find a robust two pulses per round trip mode of operation that appears to be a simple way for doubling the repetition rate.Fil: Hnilo, Alejandro Andrés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas para la Defensa. Centro de Investigación en Láseres y Aplicaciones; ArgentinaFil: Larotonda, Miguel Antonio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas para la Defensa. Centro de Investigación en Láseres y Aplicaciones; Argentin

Implementation of a hybrid scheme for coherent plug-and-play quantum key distribution

We experimentally demonstrate a hybrid configuration for quantum key distribution that combines the simplicity of distributed-phase-reference protocols with the self-referencing features and polarization insensitivity of the so-called plug-and-play system. Additionally, all the components are arranged in a server–client scheme to allow for practical key distribution. Blank, coherent pulse pair trains are generated at the reception end of the link by means of a pulse sequence and an unbalanced interferometer and sent to the other end. The emitter writes the qubits by erasing one of the pulses from the pair as in a coherent one-way protocol. Detection, as well as eavesdropping monitoring, is performed at the receiver side, using the same interferometer that was used to generate the initial phase-referenced pulses.Fil: López Grande, Ignacio Hernán. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas para la Defensa. Centro de Investigación en Láseres y Aplicaciones; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; ArgentinaFil: Larotonda, Miguel Antonio. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas para la Defensa. Centro de Investigación en Láseres y Aplicaciones; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa. Ministerio de Defensa. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa; Argentin