A photonic process called quantum-state joining has been recently experimentally demonstrated [Vitelli et al., Nat. Photonics 7, 521 (2013)] that corresponds to the transfer of the internal two-dimensional quantum states of two input photons, i.e., two photonic qubits, into the four-dimensional quantum state of a single photon, i.e., a photonic ququart. A scheme for the inverse process, namely, quantum state splitting, has also been proposed. Both processes can be iterated in a cascaded layout, to obtain the joining and/or splitting of more than two qubits, thus leading to a general scheme for varying the number of photons in the system while preserving its total quantum state, or quantum information content. Here, we revisit these processes from a theoretical point of view. After casting the theory of the joining and splitting processes in the more general occupation number notation, we introduce some modified schemes that are in principle unitary [not considering the implementation of the controlled-not (cnot) gates] and do not require projection and feed-forward steps. This can be particularly important in the quantum state splitting case, to obtain a scheme that does not rely on postselection. Moreover, we formally prove that the quantum joining of two photon states with linear optics requires the use of at least one ancilla photon. This is somewhat unexpected, given that the demonstrated joining scheme involves the sequential application of two cnot quantum gates, for which a linear optical scheme with just two photons and postselection is known to exist. Finally we explore the relationship between the joining scheme and the generation of clusters of multiparticle entangled states involving more than one qubit per particle.
Quantum state joining has been recently experimentally demonstrated [C. Vitelli et al., Nat. Photon. 7, 521 (2013)] which can transfer two input photonic qubits into a photonic ququart. Here, we revisit these processes from a hybrid point of view. By exploring the giant optical circular birefringence induced by quantum-dot spins in one-sided optical microcavities, we introduce some deterministic joining schemes including two quantum-dot spin joining, hybrid photon and quantum-dot spin joining, and two-photon joining. The input quantum information is represented by one photon with polarization and spatial mode degrees of freedom (DOFs). These schemes are also adapted to the inverse processes called quantum state splitting because all the joining procedures are unitary and do not require projection and feed-forward steps. The fused photon is convenient for realizing elementary logic gates such as the controlled-not (cnot) gate, swap gate, and Toffoli gate. These hybrid fusion and splitting schemes provide flexible synthesis of the quantum-dot spin and photon in quantum applications. The transmission superiority of photons and storage superiority of the quantum-dot spin may be combined for quantum network communication or quantum computations.
In this paper, we define directed partial join graphs with signed couplings and construct discrete-time quantum-walk transition operators for these graphs using the shunt-decomposition framework. The resulting transition operators apply to several important graph families, including complete graphs with loops, circulant partial joins, complete bipartite graphs, tensor powers of complete bipartite graphs, all with signed couplings. For each family, we identify the corresponding structure of the transition operator and derive necessary and sufficient conditions for periodicity and perfect state transfer (PST), when one of the two directed regular graphs admits PST. Based on these results, we identify two types of state transfer; internal PST, which occurs between vertices within the same graph, and coupling PST, which occurs between two components of join graphs. We further develop a double-cover construction for directed partial join graphs and derive conditions for periodicity and PST when the associated transition operators do not necessarily commute. Using this construction, we establish PST results for double covers of complete graphs with loops. In particular, we provide an example in which the complete graph
Kn does not exhibit PST for
n≥4, whereas a suitable partial join of
Kn exhibits PST when
n=2m,
m≥2. Hence, these results extend the class of graph families admitting PST in shunt-decomposition-based quantum walks and provide a unified framework for studying quantum state transfer in graph joins, products, and covers.