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arXiv:1705.06237 · ACS Photonics

Single-Photon Quantum Contextuality on a Chip

Andrea Crespi, Marco Bentivegna, Ioannis Pitsios, Davide Rusca, Davide Poderini, Gonzalo Carvacho, Vincenzo D’Ambrosio, Adán Cabello, Fabio Sciarrino, Roberto Osellame

Published Oct 17, 2017• 18 citations
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Abstract

In classical physics, properties of objects exist independently of the context, i.e., whether and how measurements are performed. Quantum physics showed this assumption to be wrong, and that Nature is indeed "contextual". Contextuality has been observed in the simplest physical systems, such as single particles, and plays fundamental roles in quantum computation advantage. Here, we demonstrate for the first time quantum contextuality in an integrated photonic chip. The chip implements different combinations of measurements on a single photon delocalized on four distinct spatial modes, showing violations of a Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH)-like noncontextuality inequality. This paves the way to compact and portable devices for contextuality-based quantum-powered protocols.

DOI
10.1021/acsphotonics.7b00793

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In classical physics, properties of objects exist independently of the context, i.e., whether and how measurements are performed. Quantum physics showed this assumption to be wrong, and that Nature is indeed "contextual". Contextuality has been observed in the simplest physical systems, such as single particles, and plays fundamental roles in quantum computation advantage. Here, we demonstrate for the first time quantum contextuality in an integrated photonic chip. The chip implements different combinations of measurements on a single photon delocalized on four distinct spatial modes, showing violations of a Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH)-like noncontextuality inequality. This paves the way to compact and portable devices for contextuality-based quantum-powered protocols.
Summary form only given. Contrarily to the classical physics picture, according to quantum mechanics the observable properties of the objects do not yield defined values, until a measurement is performed. The measurement outcome depends indeed also on the set of observables that is being measured [1]. Such a fundamental aspect of Nature is named quantum contextuality and it has been studied in several experimental systems, including single particles [2, 3]. Interestingly, it was recently suggested that even the non-classical power of quantum computing originates from contextuality [4]. Therefore, it is highly relevant to find experimental evidence of this aspect in technological platforms that may be adopted in future quantum computing devices, such as integrated photonics [5-7]. In this work we investigate experimentally quantum contextuality of a single photon on-a-chip, employing reconfigurable photonic circuits fabricated by femtosecond laser waveguide writing [7, 8].
The violation of contextuality inequalities shows a strong conflict between the noncontextual hidden variable theory and quantum mechanics. A single qutrit is the simplest indivisible quantum system that can allow a state-dependent contextuality test with five observables and a state-independent contextuality test with 13 observables. For any qutrit states, except for the maximally mixed state, one can always find a set of nine observables for which the corresponding inequality is violated [P. Kurzynski and D. Kaszlikowski, Phys. Rev. A 86, 042125 (2012)]. In this paper, we demonstrate the violation of this inequality using single-photon experiments. Our experiments not only enrich the tests of quantum contextuality, but also deepen the understanding of the physical nature of quantum mechanics.
Quantum contextuality provides a fundamental signature of nonclassical behavior that cannot be explained by noncontextual hidden-variable models. We propose and experimentally implement a linear-optical setup for demonstrating Kochen-Specker contextuality via a violation of the KCBS inequality using single photons. Our scheme employs sequential measurements realized with linear-optical networks and on-off photodetectors. The construction ensures that each co-measured observable is implemented by the same physical operation across different contexts. Our experimental results demonstrate a clear violation of the KCBS inequality and robustness against photon loss. Beyond fundamental investigations, the proposed setup provides a practical tool for probing non-classicality and photon-number statistics of quantum states, which in turn enables the verification of single-photon sources.
We investigate quantum nonlocality of a single-photon entangled state under feasible measurement techniques consisting of on-off and homodyne detections along with unitary operations of displacement and squeezing. We test for a potential violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality, in which each of the bipartite party has a freedom to choose between two measurement settings, with each measurement yielding a binary outcome. We find that single-photon quantum nonlocality can be detected when two or less of the four total measurements are carried out by homodyne detection. The largest violation of the CHSH inequality is obtained when all four measurements are squeezed-and-displaced on-off detections. We test the robustness of violations against imperfections in on-off detectors and single-photon sources, finding that the squeezed-and-displaced measurement schemes perform better than the displacement-only measurement schemes.
Contextuality is a phenomenon at the heart of the quantum mechanical departure from classical behaviour, and has been recently identified as a resource in quantum computation. Experimental demonstration of contextuality is thus an important goal. The traditional form of contextuality -- as violation of a Kochen-Specker inequality -- requires a quantum system with at least three levels, and the status of the assumption of determinism used in deriving those inequalities has been controversial. By considering `unsharp' observables, Liang, Spekkens and Wiseman (LSW) derived an inequality for generalized noncontextual models that doesn't assume determinism, and applies already to a qubit. We experimentally implement the LSW test using the polarization states of a heralded single photon and three unsharp binary measurements. We violate the LSW inequality by more than 16 standard deviations, thus showing that our results cannot be reproduced by a noncontextual subset of quantum theory.