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arXiv:1801.00894 · Optics Express

Manipulating orbital angular momentum entanglement by using the Heisenberg uncertainty principle

Wei Li, Shengmei Zhao

Published Aug 7, 2018• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Orbital angular momentum entanglement (OAM) is one of the very intriguing topics in quantum physics. In addition to discovering and exploring its underlying mechanics, recent studies have also demonstrated a progress towards expanding degree of its entanglement. In this paper, we explore OAM entanglement by applying the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to the quantum position correlation within the azimuthal region. In particular, we decompose the pump light into a set of pump cone states characterized by their radii. The OAM entanglement can then be manipulated by controlling the radius of the pump cone state, the length of the nonlinear crystal and also the OAM carried by the pump field. That is followed by a detailed discussion and analysis. Such an exploration not only bring us a deeper understanding of OAM entanglement, but also help us to implement the high-dimensional quantum information tasks based on OAM entanglement.

DOI
10.1364/oe.26.021725

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Orbital angular momentum entanglement (OAM) is one of the very intriguing topics in quantum physics. In addition to discovering and exploring its underlying mechanics, recent studies have also demonstrated a progress towards expanding degree of its entanglement. In this paper, we explore OAM entanglement by applying the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to the quantum position correlation within the azimuthal region. In particular, we decompose the pump light into a set of pump cone states characterized by their radii. The OAM entanglement can then be manipulated by controlling the radius of the pump cone state, the length of the nonlinear crystal and also the OAM carried by the pump field. That is followed by a detailed discussion and analysis. Such an exploration not only bring us a deeper understanding of OAM entanglement, but also help us to implement the high-dimensional quantum information tasks based on OAM entanglement.
High-dimensional quantum entanglement is an important resource for fundamental research and quantum technological application. Recently, the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light has received much attention to realize high-dimensional quantum systems, and generating and manipulating the OAM entanglement has become an important topic. Here, we propose an inverse design technique to manipulate the OAM entanglement of the photon pair generated through spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The proposed technique directly tailors the OAM states of entangled photon pairs by shaping the incident pump beam. In particular, we construct a physics-informed model by leveraging the backpropagation algorithm and adhering to the overlap integral relation. Our model automatically optimizes diffractive masks, allowing the structured pump to quantitatively modulate the OAM distribution. The generation of maximally entangled states in different dimensions is demonstrated numerically and experimentally.
Orbital angular momentum (OAM) is one of the most recently discovered properties of light, and it is only in the past decade its quantum properties have been the subject of experimental investigations and have found applications. Unlike polarization, which is only bidimensional, orbital angular momentum provides, with relative ease, unprecedented access to a theoretically unbounded discrete state space. The process of spontaneous parametric down-conversion has long been used as a source of two-photon states that can be entangled in several degrees of freedom, including OAM. In this thesis, the properties of the natural OAM spectrum associated with the entangled states produced by parametric down-conversion were investigated. Chapters 2 and 3 describe the production and detection of tunable high-dimensional OAM entanglement in a down-conversion system. By tuning the phase-matching conditions and improving the detection stage, a substantial increase in the half-width of the OAM correlation spectrum was observed. The conjugate variable of OAM, angular position, was also considered when examining high-dimensional states entangled in OAM. In order to efficiently determine their dimension, high-dimensional entangled states were probed by implementing a technique based on phase masks composed of multiple angular sectors, as opposed to narrow single-sector analysers. Presented in chapter 4, this technique allows the measurements of tight angular correlations while maintaining high optical throughput. The states so produced were then used for a number of applications centred around the concept of mutually unbiased bases. One can define sets of mutually unbiased bases for arbitrary subspaces of the OAM state space. Two bases are mutually unbiased if the measurement of a state in one basis provides no information about the state as described in the other basis. Complete measurements in mutually unbiased bases of high-dimensional OAM spaces are presented in chapter 5. Measurements in sets of mutually unbiased bases are integral to quantum science and can be used in a variety of protocols that fully exploit the large size of the OAM state space; we describe their use in efficient quantum state tomography, quantum key distribution and entanglement detection. Caution is however necessary when dealing with state spaces embedded in higher-dimensional spaces, such as that provided by OAM. Experimental tests of Bell-type inequalities allow us to rule out local hidden variable theories in the description of quantum correlations. Correlations inconsistent with the states observed, or even with quantum mechanics, known as super-quantum correlations, have however been recorded previously in experiments that fail to comply with the fair-sampling conditions. Chapter 6 describes an experiment that uses a particular choice of transverse spatial modes for which super-quantum correlations persist even if the detection is made perfectly efficient. The sets of modes carrying OAM allow a complete description of the transverse field. The ability to control and combine additional degrees of freedom provides the possibility for richer varieties of entanglement and can make quantum protocols more powerful and versatile. One such property of light, associated with transverse modes possessing radial nodes in the field distribution, can be accessed within the same type of experimental apparatus used for OAM. In chapter 7, the radial degree of freedom is explored, together with OAM, in the context of Hong-Ou-Mandel interference.
Abstract The inseparability of quantum correlation requires that the particles in the composite system be treated as a whole rather than treated separately, a typical example is the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) paradox. In this paper, we provide a theoretical study on the uncertainty relations of two kinds of bipartite observables in two-photon orbital angular momentum (OAM) entanglement, that is, the relative distance and centroid of the two photons at azimuth. We find that the uncertainty relations of the bipartite observables holds in any two-photon state, and they are separable in two-photon OAM entanglement. In addition, the entangled state behaves as a single particle in the bipartite representation. Finally, we find that the uncertainty relations of the bipartite observables can be used to manipulate the degree of the entanglement of an EPR state. Graphic abstract
Orbital angular momentum (OAM) of single photons represents a new optical degree of freedom for the entanglement of photons [1,2]. One physical realization of OAM carrying light beams are the so called Laguerre-Gaussian modes of light with the required helical phase structure. One big advantage over the well known polarization degree of freedom is the possibility of realizing entanglement between two photons with very high quantum numbers. However, the creation of photonic OAM entanglement using the widely used spontaneous parametric downconversion process is limited by the strongly reduced efficiency for higher momenta [3]. We have realized a novel method to create entanglement between two photons with a very high difference in their OAM quantum number and momentum respectively. Furthermore we have explored hybrid entanglement of photons in the OAM and polarization degree of freedom.
An important problem in the practical application of high-dimensional two-photon orbital angular momentum (OAM) entanglement generated by spontaneous down conversion is a lower degree of entanglement, where the amplitudes of modes are not uniformly distributed. In contrast to the previously raised entanglement concentration protocol, we here report on an experimental scheme that addresses this problem by tuning the two-photon quantum angular position correlation. An opaque mask with N evenly distributed angular slits having a radius r is inserted in the two-photon down-conversion light path. The number N should be such that the separation of adjacent angular slits is larger than the scale of the two-photon angular position correlation. The OAM entanglement for the two-photon state after the opaque mask is cast into a set of folded subbands with a dimension of N, owing to the reduction of rotational symmetry from continuous invariance to discrete invariance. Almost maximum OAM entanglement can be realized by properly setting the width of the angular slits.
Spatially structured quantum states, such as orbital angular momentum (OAM) squeezing and entanglement, is currently a popular topic in quantum optics. The method of generating and manipulating spatial quantum states on demand needs to be explored. In this paper, we generated OAM mode squeezed states of −5.4 dB for the L G 0 + 1 mode and −5.3 dB for the L G 0 − 1 mode directly by an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) for the first time. Additionally, we demonstrated that the OAM mode squeezed and entangled states were respectively generated by manipulating the nonlinear process of the OPO by controlling the relative phase of two beams of different modes, thus making two different spatial multimode pump beams. We characterized the Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) entangled states by indirectly measuring the squeezing for the H G 10 ( 45 ∘ ) mode and H G 10 ( 135 ∘ ) mode, and directly measuring the entanglement between the L G 0 + 1 and L G 0 − 1 modes. The effective manipulation of the OAM quantum state provides a novel insight into the continuous variable quantum state generation and construction on demand for high-dimensional quantum information and quantum metrology.