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arXiv:2310.17411 · Physical Review A

Two-photon quantum state tomography of photonic qubits

Guilherme P. Temporão, Pedro Ripper, Thiago Guerreiro, Gustavo Castro do Amaral

Published Feb 2, 2024• 5 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We provide a tool for measuring the Stokes parameters and the degree of polarization of single photons by employing second-order interference, namely, the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interferometer. It is shown that the technique is able to distinguish a partially polarized photon where the polarization state is coupled to an internal degree of freedom, such as time of arrival, from partial polarization due to external entanglement with the environment. The method does not directly resort to any kind of polarization-selective components and therefore is not limited by the extinction ratio of polarizers. Moreover, the technique can be generalized to any two-level encoding of quantum information in single photons, such as time-bin or orbital angular momentum qubits.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.109.022402

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We provide a tool for measuring the Stokes parameters and the degree of polarization of single photons by employing second-order interference, namely, the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interferometer. It is shown that the technique is able to distinguish a partially polarized photon where the polarization state is coupled to an internal degree of freedom, such as time of arrival, from partial polarization due to external entanglement with the environment. The method does not directly resort to any kind of polarization-selective components and therefore is not limited by the extinction ratio of polarizers. Moreover, the technique can be generalized to any two-level encoding of quantum information in single photons, such as time-bin or orbital angular momentum qubits.
A single photon has many physical degrees of freedom (DOF) that can carry the state of a high-dimensional quantum system. Nevertheless, only a single DOF is usually used in any specific demonstration. Furthermore, when more DOF are being used, they are analyzed and measured one at a time. We introduce a two-qubit information system, realized by two degrees of freedom of a single photon: polarization and time. The photon arrival time is divided into two time bins representing a qubit, while its polarization state represents a second qubit. The time difference between the two time bins is created without an interferometer at the picosecond scale, which is much smaller than the detector's response time. The two physically different DOF are analyzed simultaneously by photon bunching between the analyzed photon and an ancilla photon. Full two-qubit states encoded in single photons were reconstructed using quantum state tomography, both when the two DOF were entangled and when they were not, with fidelities higher than 96%.
Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference [1] is a bunching phenomenon based on the bosonic nature of photons. When two photons that are perfectly indistinguishable from each other are mixed using a half beam splitter (HBS), they always bunch and exhibit the absence of coincidence resulting in a specific interferogram called HOM dip. The important property of the HOM interference is that the decrease in coincidence reflects the degree of indistinguishability of the input photons, i.e., it provides information regarding the probability of overlap of the input photons. Thus, this property should enable the estimation of a target photon in an unknown quantum state using a probe photon in a known state. In this work, we realize the above concept as the quantum state tomography (QST) applicable to d-dimensional photonic qudits, which we call HOM-QST [2]. Interestingly, we observe that HOM-QST is robust against various imperfections and that the probe photon can be replaced by classical light. Furthermore, we confirm this by demonstrating a proof-of-principle experiment using two-dimensional polarization qubits.
Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference [1] is a bunching phenomenon based on the bosonic nature of photons. When two photons that are perfectly indistinguishable from each other are mixed using a half beam splitter (HBS), they always bunch and exhibit the absence of coincidence resulting in a specific interferogram called HOM dip. The important property of the HOM interference is that the decrease in coincidence reflects the degree of indistinguishability of the input photons, i.e., it provides information regarding the probability of overlap of the input photons. Thus, this property should enable the estimation of a target photon in an unknown quantum state using a probe photon in a known state. In this work, we realize the above concept as the quantum state tomography (QST) applicable tod-dimensionald\text{-dimensional}d-dimensionalphotonic qudits, which we call HOM-QST [2]. Interestingly, we observe that HOM-QST is robust against various imperfections and that the probe photon can be replaced by classical light. Furthermore, we confirm this by demonstrating a proof-of-principle experiment using two-dimensional polarization qubits.
Quantum state tomography (QST), the process through which the density matrix of a quantum system is characterized from measurements of specific observables, is a fundamental pillar in the fields of quantum information and computation. In this work, we propose a simple QST method to reconstruct the density matrix of two qubits encoded in the polarization and path degrees of freedom of a single photon, which can be realized with a single linear-optical setup. We demonstrate that the density matrix can be fully described in terms of the Stokes parameters related to the two possibles paths of the photon, together with a quantum version of the two-point Stokes parameters introduced here. Our findings put forward photonic circuits for the investigation of the dynamics of open quantum systems.
Quantum states encoded in the time-bin degree of freedom of photons represent a fundamental resource for quantum information protocols. Traditional methods for generating and measuring time-bin-encoded quantum states face severe challenges due to optical instabilities, complex setups, and timing resolution requirements. To circumvent these issues, we leverage an approach based on Hong-Ou-Mandel interference and we propose and demonstrate a robust and scalable protocol to generate and measure arbitrary high-dimensional time-bin quantum states. We experimentally implement the protocol in a photonic setup reaching high-fidelity quantum state tomographies of two- and three-dimensional quantum states encoded in time bins with short temporal separation. We also certify intrasystem polarization-time entanglement of single photons through a nonclassicality test. The demonstrated approach enables access to high-dimensional states and tasks that are practically inaccessible with standard schemes, thereby advancing fundamental quantum information science and opening applications in quantum communication.