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arXiv:0902.1660 · Physical Review A

Propagation of transverse intensity correlations of a two-photon state

D. S. Tasca, Stephen Patrick Walborn, P. H. Souto Ribeiro, Fabricio Toscano, Pierre Pellat-Finet

Published Mar 4, 2009• 66 citations
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Abstract

The propagation of transverse spatial correlations of photon pairs through arbitrary first-order linear optical systems is studied experimentally and theoretically using the fractional Fourier transform. Highly correlated photon pairs in an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-like state are produced by spontaneous parametric down-conversion and subject to optical fractional Fourier transform systems. It is shown that the joint detection probability can display either correlation, anticorrelation, or no correlation, depending on the sum of the orders $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ and $\ensuremath{\beta}$ of the transforms of the down-converted photons. We present analytical results for the propagation of the perfectly correlated EPR state and numerical results for the propagation of the two-photon state produced from parametric down-conversion. We find good agreement between the theory and experiment.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.79.033801

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The propagation of transverse spatial correlations of photon pairs through arbitrary first-order linear optical systems is studied experimentally and theoretically using the fractional Fourier transform. Highly correlated photon pairs in an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-like state are produced by spontaneous parametric down-conversion and subject to optical fractional Fourier transform systems. It is shown that the joint detection probability can display either correlation, anticorrelation, or no correlation, depending on the sum of the orders \ensuremathα\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremathα and \ensuremathβ\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremathβ of the transforms of the down-converted photons. We present analytical results for the propagation of the perfectly correlated EPR state and numerical results for the propagation of the two-photon state produced from parametric down-conversion. We find good agreement between the theory and experiment.
Spontaneous parametric down-conversion is the primary source of position-correlated and momentum-anti-correlated photon pairs that form the canonical Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) state. Their transverse spatial correlations are usually analyzed within the thin-crystal approximation, where the two-photon wavefunction is assumed to factorize into independent functions of the sum and difference coordinates. In practice, however, birefringence-induced transverse walk-off breaks this factorization and couples these degrees of freedom. Here, we show that this coupling persists even for nominally thin crystals once the free-space propagation of the joint spatial intensity is taken into account. This sum-difference coordinate coupling leads to a distinctive tapering of the transverse correlations near the crystal image plane - an effect that standard factorized models cannot capture. Numerical simulations and experimental data clearly confirm this novel behavior. Our findings provide a more complete description of photon-pair generation in birefringent nonlinear media and clarify fundamental limits on spatially resolved quantum imaging and spatial-mode quantum information processing with EPR states.
Spontaneous parametric down-conversion is the primary source of position-correlated and momentum-anticorrelated photon pairs that form the canonical Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) state. Their transverse spatial correlations are usually analyzed within the thin-crystal approximation, where the two-photon wavefunction is assumed to factorize into independent functions of the sum and difference coordinates. In practice, however, birefringence-induced transverse walk-off breaks this factorization and couples these degrees of freedom. Here, we show that this coupling persists even for nominally thin crystals once the free-space propagation of the joint spatial intensity is taken into account. This sum-difference coordinate coupling leads to a distinctive tapering of the transverse correlations near the crystal image plane-an effect that standard factorized models cannot capture. Numerical simulations and experimental data clearly confirm this novel behavior. Our findings provide a more complete description of photon-pair generation in birefringent nonlinear media and clarify fundamental limits on spatially resolved quantum imaging and spatial-mode quantum information processing with EPR states.
Abstract The measurement of the position–momentum Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) correlations of a two-photon state is important for many quantum information applications ranging from quantum key distribution to coincidence imaging. However, all the existing techniques for measuring the position–momentum EPR correlations involve coincidence detection and thus suffer from issues that result in less accurate measurements. In this article, we propose and demonstrate an experimental scheme that does not require coincidence detection for measuring the EPR correlations. Our technique works for two-photon states that are pure, irrespective of whether the state is separable or entangled. We theoretically show that if the pure two-photon state satisfies a certain set of conditions then the position–momentum EPR correlations can be obtained by doing the intensity measurements on only one of the photons. We experimentally demonstrate this technique for pure two-photon states produced by type-I spontaneous parametric down-conversion, and to the best of our knowledge, we report the most accurate experimental measurement of position–momentum EPR correlations.
We report an experiment to generate and propagate two entangled spatial qudits, [Formula: see text]-dimensional quantum systems, using spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The manipulation, via pump beam, of the transverse spatial correlation between the photon pairs is explored. Inserting apertures with [Formula: see text]-slits in the arms of the down-converted photons, we associate the qudit space with the [Formula: see text] possible paths followed by each photon. Experimental results for qudits with [Formula: see text] and 8 are shown. We demonstrate that the generated states cannot be classically correlated. We also show the propagation of entangled states of spatial qudits. Their free-space distribution is performed at the laboratory scale and the propagated states maintain a high fidelity with their original form.
We verify transverse spatial entanglement of photon-pairs generated in spontaneous parametric down conversion using a nonlinear interferometric technique without relying on any coincidence detection. We experimentally demonstrate the violation of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen criterion and of the Mancini-Giovannetti-Vitali-Tombesi criterion using single photon interference of one of the photons of the pairs. We also provide a comprehensive theoretical analysis. The experimental results that we have obtained show good agreement with the theoretical values. Our method performs well under experimental losses and can be applied to highly non-degenerate sources, where there are no suitable detectors for one of the photons in the quantum state and our method could also be extended to the discrete degrees of freedom to certify high-dimensional (OAM) entanglement.
High-dimensional entanglement in the form of transverse spatial correlation between a pair of photons generated via spontaneous parametric downconversion is not only a valuable resource in many academic and real-life applications but also provides access to several intriguing quantum phenomena. One such non-intuitive phenomenon is phase entanglement, in which the biphoton state is correlated in the complex phase of its wavefunction. This state, which emerges during the propagation of the biphoton wavefunction, exhibits neither position nor momentum correlation, yet retains full entanglement. In this work, we experimentally explore this state in two distinct ways. The first is by tracking the vanishing spatial photon number correlation over propagation distances lying in [0,∞)\left[0,\infty\right)[0,∞), folded into a finite range using single-lens imaging. These observations show excellent agreement with our theoretical predictions based on the Double Gaussian (DG) approximation of the biphoton state. The second approach involves performing a two-photon interference experiment using a double slit and this state, which reveals the correlated phase front. We show, both theoretically and experimentally, that the observed two-photon interference structure is markedly different from that produced by position-correlated photons, as confirmed by computing the joint probability distribution of photons (JPD) and related metrics. Such interference using phase-entangled light has not been attempted before and opens avenues for advanced experiments and applications in the field of spatial entanglement.