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arXiv:1608.08821 · Physics Letters A

Effects of entanglement in an ideal optical amplifier

J. D. Franson, R. A. Brewster

Published Jan 31, 2018• 11 citations
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Abstract

In an ideal linear amplifier, the output signal is linearly related to the input signal with an additive noise that is independent of the input. The decoherence of a quantum-mechanical state as a result of optical amplification is usually assumed to be due to the addition of quantum noise. Here we show that entanglement between the input signal and the amplifying medium can produce an exponentially-large amount of decoherence in an ideal optical amplifier even when the gain is arbitrarily close to unity and the added noise is negligible. These effects occur for macroscopic superposition states, where even a small amount of gain can leave a significant amount of which-path information in the environment. Our results show that the usual input/output relation of a linear amplifier does not provide a complete description of the output state when post-selection is used.

DOI
10.1016/j.physleta.2018.01.032

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In an ideal linear amplifier, the output signal is linearly related to the input signal with an additive noise that is independent of the input. The decoherence of a quantum-mechanical state as a result of optical amplification is usually assumed to be due to the addition of quantum noise. Here we show that entanglement between the input signal and the amplifying medium can produce an exponentially-large amount of decoherence in an ideal optical amplifier even when the gain is arbitrarily close to unity and the added noise is negligible. These effects occur for macroscopic superposition states, where even a small amount of gain can leave a significant amount of which-path information in the environment. Our results show that the usual input/output relation of a linear amplifier does not provide a complete description of the output state when post-selection is used.
In a linear amplifier, the output signal is linearly related to the input signal with an additive noise that is independent of the input. Here we show that entanglement between the input signal and the amplifying medium can produce exponentially-large decoherence in an ideal optical amplifier even when the gain is arbitrarily close to unity and the added noise is arbitrarily small. These nonlinear effects show that the usual input/output relationship of a 'linear' amplifier does not provide a complete description of its performance.
Quantum noise is usually added in an amplification process through the internal degrees of the amplifier. Coupling the squeezed state to the internal degree can suppress the extra noise. Here, we demonstrate another method: when the internal degree of the amplifier is correlated with the input signal via quantum entanglement, quantum destructive interference between the input and the internal degree may result in noise reduction at the amplified output. We achieve a quantum noise reduction of 2.3 dB at the output and an improvement of 4.0±0.2 dB in signal-to-noise ratio during the amplification process with a quantum noise gain of 4.5 dB.
Due to the pervasive nature of decoherence, protection of quantum information during transmission is of critical importance for any quantum network. A linear amplifier that can enhance quantum signals stronger than their associated noise while preserving quantum coherence is therefore of great use. This seemingly unphysical amplifier property is achievable for a class of probabilistic amplifiers that does not work deterministically. Here we present a linear amplification scheme that realises this property for coherent states by combining a heralded measurement-based noiseless linear amplifier and a deterministic linear amplifier. The concatenation of two amplifiers introduces the flexibility that allows one to tune between the regimes of high-gain or high noise-reduction, and control the trade-off of these performances against a finite heralding probability. We demonstrate an amplification signal transfer coefficient of Ts>1\mathcal{T}_s > 1Ts​>1 with no statistical distortion of the output state. By partially relaxing the demand of output Gaussianity, we can obtain further improvement to achieve a Ts=2.55±0.08\mathcal{T}_s = 2.55 \pm 0.08Ts​=2.55±0.08. Our amplification scheme only relies on linear optics and post-selection algorithm. We discuss the potential of using this amplifier as a building block in extending the distance of quantum communication.