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arXiv:1205.4669 · Physical Review Letters

Sub-Binomial Light

Jan Sperling, W. Vogel, G. S. Agarwal

Published Aug 27, 2012• 76 citations
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Abstract

The click statistics from on-off detector systems is quite different from the counting statistics of the more traditional detectors. This necessitates the introduction of new parameters to characterize the nonclassicality of fields from measurements using on-off detectors. To properly replace the Mandel Q(M) parameter, we introduce a parameter Q(B). A negative value represents a sub-binomial statistics. This is possible only for quantum fields, even for super-Poisson light. It eliminates the problems encountered in discerning nonclassicality using Mandel's Q(M) for on-off data.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.109.093601

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The click statistics from on-off detector systems is quite different from the counting statistics of the more traditional detectors. This necessitates the introduction of new parameters to characterize the nonclassicality of fields from measurements using on-off detectors. To properly replace the Mandel Q(M) parameter, we introduce a parameter Q(B). A negative value represents a sub-binomial statistics. This is possible only for quantum fields, even for super-Poisson light. It eliminates the problems encountered in discerning nonclassicality using Mandel's Q(M) for on-off data.
Nonclassical states of light are necessary resources for quantum technologies such as cryptography, computation and the definition of metrological standards. Distinguishing nonclassical states from those that can be described without invoking quantum mechanics is both a necessary practical task and of fundamental interest. In general, signatures of nonclassicality arise from apparently pathological behaviour of the quasi-probability distributions used to describe the states. While tomographic reconstruction of the state is therefore sufficient to show nonclassicality, it is often more convenient to probe photon-counting statistics of on-off detectors directly. This is formalised by the Mandel Q-parameter QM= 〈Δn〉 / 〈n〉 - 1, which is negative for sub-Poissonian statistics arising from nonclassical states. However, the Mandel Q-parameter can fail when using a multiplexed array of on-off detectors to measure states with several photons; splitting in this manner can corrupt its original statistics. A new parameter, QB= N 〈(Δ c) 2 〉 / 〈 c 〉 (N - 〈 c 〉) can be used to witness nonclassicality directly from such click statistics. For QB<; 0, such statistics are thus deemed sub-binomial and therefore arise from a nonclassical state.
We introduce a general parameter QPB{Q}_{\mathrm{PB}}QPB​ that provides an experimentally accessible nonclassicality measure for light. The parameter is quantified by the click statistics obtained from on-off detectors in a general multiplexing detection setup. Sub-Poisson-binomial statistics, observed by QPB<0{Q}_{\mathrm{PB}}<0QPB​<0, indicates that a given state of light is nonclassical. Our parameter replaces the binomial parameter QB{Q}_{\mathrm{B}}QB​ for more general cases, where any unbalance among the multiplexed modes is allowed, thus enabling the use of arbitrary multiplexing schemes. The significance of the parameter QPB{Q}_{\mathrm{PB}}QPB​ is theoretically examined in a measurement setup that only consists of a ring resonator and a single on-off detector. The proposed setup exploits minimal experimental resources and is geared towards a fully integrated quantum nanophotonic circuit. The results show that nonclassical features remain noticeable even in the presence of significant losses, rendering our nonclassicality test more practical and sufficiently flexible to be used in various nanophotonic platforms.
, 163602 (2017)], we introduced and applied a detector-independent method to uncover nonclassicality. Here, we extend those techniques and give more details on the performed analysis. We derive a general theory of the positive-operator-valued measure that describes multiplexing layouts with arbitrary detectors. From the resulting quantum version of a multinomial statistics, we infer nonclassicality probes based on a matrix of normally ordered moments. We discuss these criteria and apply the theory to our data which are measured with superconducting transition-edge sensors. Our experiment produces heralded multiphoton states from a parametric down-conversion light source. We show that the known notions of sub-Poisson and sub-binomial light can be deduced from our general approach, and we establish the concept of sub-multinomial light, which is shown to outperform the former two concepts of nonclassicality for our data.
Nonclassical states of light are necessary resources for quantum technologies such as cryptography, computation and the definition of metrological standards. Observing signatures of nonclassicality generally requires inferring either the photon number distribution or a quasiprobability distribution indirectly from a set of measurements. Here, we report an experiment in which the nonclassical character of families of quantum states is assessed by direct inspection of the outcomes from a multiplexed photon counter. This scheme does not register the actual photon number distribution; the statistics of the detector clicks alone serve as a witness of nonclassicality, as proposed by Sperling et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 093601 (2012)]. Our work paves a way for the practical characterization of increasingly sophisticated states and detectors.
Systems of on-off detectors are well established for measuring radiation fields in the regime of small photon numbers. We propose to combine these detector systems with unbalanced homodyning with a weak local oscillator. This approach yields phase-space functions, which represent the click counterpart of the s parametrized quasiprobabilities of standard photoelectric detection theory. This introduced class of distributions can be directly sampled from the measured click-counting statistics. Therefore, our technique visualizes nonclassical effects without further data processing. Surprisingly, a small number of on-off diodes can yield more insight than perfect photon number resolution. Quantum signatures in the particle and wave domain of the quantized radiation field, as shown by photon number and squeezed states, respectively, will be uncovered in terms of negativities of the sampled phase-space functions. Application in the vast fields of quantum optics and quantum technology will benefit from our efficient nonclassicality characterization approach.