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arXiv:1308.0842 · Physical Review A

Compact entanglement distillery using realistic quantum memories

Levon Chakhmakhchyan, S. Guérin, Joshua Nunn, Animesh Datta

Published Oct 11, 2013• 5 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We adopt the beam-splitter model for losses to analyze the performance of a recent compact continuous-variable entanglement distillation protocol [A. Datta et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 060502 (2012)] implemented using realistic quantum memories. We show that the decoherence undergone by a two-mode squeezed state while stored in a quantum memory can strongly modify the results of the preparatory step of the protocol. We find that the well-known method for locally increasing entanglement, phonon subtraction, may not result in entanglement gain when losses are taken into account. Thus, we investigate the critical number ${m}_{c}$ of phonon subtraction attempts from the matter modes of the quantum memory. If the initial state is not de-Gaussified within ${m}_{c}$ attempts, the protocol should be restarted to obtain any entanglement increase. Moreover, the condition ${m}_{c}>1$ implies an additional constraint on the subtraction beam-splitter interaction transmissivity, viz., it should be about $50%$ for a wide range of protocol parameters. Additionally, we consider the average entanglement rate, which takes into account both the unavoidable probabilistic nature of the protocol and its possible failure as a result of a large number of unsuccessful subtraction attempts. We find that a higher value of the average entanglement can be achieved by increasing the subtraction beam-splitter interaction transmissivity. We conclude that the compact distillation protocol with the practical constraints coming from realistic quantum memories allows a feasible experimental realization within existing technologies.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.88.042312

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We present a detailed theoretical analysis for the distillation of one copy of a mixed two-mode continuous-variable entangled state using beam splitters and coherent photon-detection techniques, including conventional on-off detectors and photon-number-resolving detectors. The initial Gaussian mixed-entangled states are generated by transmitting a two-mode squeezed state through a lossy bosonic channel, corresponding to the primary source of errors in current approaches to optical quantum communication. We provide explicit formulas to calculate the entanglement in terms of logarithmic negativity before and after distillation, including losses in the channel and the photon detection, and show that one-copy distillation is still possible even for losses near the typical fiber channel attenuation length. A lower bound for the transmission coefficient of the photon-subtraction beam splitter is derived, representing the minimal value that still allows to enhance the entanglement.
Recently, the strong single-mode squeezed vacuum state of light with −15-15−15−15 dB of classic noise has been created [Phys. Rev. Lett.117, 110801 (2016)10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.110801]. This is an important resource in continuous variable (CV) quantum communication and fault-tolerant quantum computing. Nevertheless, strong squeezing means a non-negligible population in high-photon-number subspace and may pose a strong challenge to photon-based technology, for example, entanglement distillation. Entanglement distillation is an efficient method for retrieving a higher quality of entanglement from a weakly entangled state. Up till now, almost all the schemes for entanglement distillation are restricted to the low-squeezing regime. The distillation of strong-squeezing induced entanglement is an interesting but open topic in the near future. Here, we take the single-mode squeezed entangled state (SMSE) as an example and show that conventional photon subtraction based distillation fails to generate a higher quality of entanglement with experimentally feasible optical beam splitters. To this point, we show that the superposition of photon annihilation and creation could be an effective method. A practical scheme for implementing such a superposition with on-line squeezing is suggested. Our method is verified numerically by the calculation of a 25 dB SMSE state with an ideal photon detector and for distillation of 20.5 dB SMSE state with practical dichotic on-off detectors. The analysis of the distillation of the strong squeezing effect could be extended straightforwardly to other squeezing-based quantum information processing, such as quantum metrology and quantum illumination.
We introduce a new scheme for continuous-variable entanglement distillation that requires only linear temporal and constant physical or spatial resources. Distillation is the process by which high-quality entanglement may be distributed between distant nodes of a network in the unavoidable presence of decoherence. The known versions of this protocol scale exponentially in space and doubly exponentially in time. Our optimal scheme therefore provides exponential improvements over existing protocols. It uses a fixed-resource module-an entanglement distillery-comprising only four quantum memories of at most 50% storage efficiency and allowing a feasible experimental implementation. Tangible quantum advantages are obtainable by using existing off-resonant Raman quantum memories outside their conventional role of storage.
Entanglement distribution between distant parties is an essential component to most quantum communication protocols. Unfortunately, decoherence effects such as phase noise in optical fibres are known to demolish entanglement. Iterative (multistep) entanglement distillation protocols have long been proposed to overcome decoherence, but their probabilistic nature makes them inefficient since the success probability decays exponentially with the number of steps. Quantum memories have been contemplated to make entanglement distillation practical, but suitable quantum memories are not realised to date. Here, we present the theory for an efficient iterative entanglement distillation protocol without quantum memories and provide a proof-of-principle experimental demonstration. The scheme is applied to phase-diffused two-mode-squeezed states and proven to distil entanglement for up to three iteration steps. The data are indistinguishable from those that an efficient scheme using quantum memories would produce. Since our protocol includes the final measurement it is particularly promising for enhancing continuous-variable quantum key distribution.
Subtracting photons from a two-mode squeezed state is a well-known method to increase entanglement. We analyze different strategies of local photon subtraction from a two-mode squeezed state in terms of entanglement gain and success probability. We develop a general framework that incorporates imperfections and losses in all stages of the process: before, during, and after subtraction. By combining all three effects into a single efficiency parameter, we provide analytical and numerical results for subtraction strategies using photon-number-resolving and threshold detectors. We compare the entanglement gain afforded by symmetric and asymmetric subtraction scenarios across the two modes. For a given amount of loss, we identify an optimized set of parameters, such as initial squeezing and subtraction beam splitter transmissivity, that maximize the entanglement gain rate. We identify regimes for which asymmetric subtraction of different Fock states on the two modes outperforms symmetric strategies. In the lossless limit, subtracting a single photon from one mode always produces the highest entanglement gain rate. In the lossy case, the optimal strategy depends strongly on the losses on each mode individually, such that there is no general optimal strategy. Rather, taking losses on each mode as the only input parameters, we can identify the optimal subtraction strategy and required beam splitter transmissivities and initial squeezing parameter. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for the distillation of continuous-variable quantum entanglement.
Entanglement distillation is a probabilistic quantum operation which tries to repair entanglement after environment-induced decoherence. All known distillations of continuous variable entanglement always assume that the entanglement is distributed via a standard attenuating channel with fixed photon loss rate, which is fairly idealized without many realistic effects taken into account. Here we investigate the problem of distillation of entanglement transmitted via atmospheric channel, with transmittance being highly probabilistic and unfixed. Two typical distillation schemes, i.e., single-sided photon subtraction and bi-sided photon subtraction, are investigated.