Efficiently certifying non-Gaussian entanglement in continuous-variable quantum systems is a central challenge for advancing quantum information processing, photonic quantum computing, and metrology. Here, we put forward continuous-variable counterparts to the recently introduced entanglement criteria based on moments of the partially transposed state, together with simple readout schemes that require only a few replicas of the state, passive linear optics, and particle-number measurements. We develop a multicopy method that enables the detection of strongly non-Gaussian entanglement for various relevant state families overlooked by standard approaches, which include the entire class of NOON states. Further, it is robust against realistic experimental constraints (losses, noise, and finite statistics), which we demonstrate by extensive numerical simulations.
Efficiently certifying non-Gaussian entanglement in continuous-variable quantum systems is a central challenge for advancing quantum information processing, photonic quantum computing, and metrology. Here, we put forward continuous-variable counterparts to the recently introduced entanglement criteria based on moments of the partially transposed state, together with simple readout schemes that require only a few replicas of the state, passive linear optics, and particle-number measurements. We develop a multicopy method that enables the detection of strongly non-Gaussian entanglement for various relevant state families overlooked by standard approaches, which include the entire class of NOON states. Further, it is robust against realistic experimental constraints (losses, noise, and finite statistics), which we demonstrate by extensive numerical simulations.
The characterisation of quantum correlations, also known as entanglement, is central to quantum information theory. Operationally, entanglement gives rise to the notion of quantum non-locality, which challenges the ‘reality’ of quantum mechanics (adopting the terminology of Einstein, Podolski and Rosen) and arguably represents its most distinctive feature, in the sense that it calls for a departure from certain foundational tenets of classical physics. It should thus not come as a surprise that entanglement turns out to be a key resource for the implementation of a number of quantum communication protocols and also necessary to achieve computational speed-ups with quantum hardware, in the sense that accessing regions of the Hilbert space with entangled states allows one to shorten the computational depth of certain algorithms. Not surprisingly, generating and maintaining entanglement is generally difficult in practice, as it requires strong interactions between selected components of a system that must at the same time be isolated from the environment. Thanks to the techniques developed in quantum optical set-ups to achieve squeezed light, entanglement is, however, comparatively accessible with optical quantum continuous variables. As we shall see, in fact, continuous variable entanglement is closely related to the notion of squeezing. It is therefore of the utmost importance to be able to qualify and quantify the entanglement of quantum continuous variables, which is the subject matter of the present chapter. The first part of the chapter is devoted to techniques and criteria based on second moments to detect the entanglement of Gaussian states and also to the description of possible ways to quantify such quantum correlations, bearing in mind that the determination of entanglement monotones of clear operational significance is still an open problem, even in the restricted arena of Gaussian states. Although the criteria based on second moments are sufficient, but not necessary, for the detection of non-Gaussian entanglement too, we will push our analysis further by introducing more general criteria based on higher order statistical moments, which will be put to use to detect, on paper, the quantum correlations of an entangled cat-like state. We will also address the issues of entanglement distillation and quantum non-locality tests, in whose contexts we shall encounter other non-Gaussian operations and states, such as photon-subtracted states.
Quantum correlations are at the core of quantum information processing and are necessary to achieve a quantum computational advantage. In the context of continuous-variable quantum systems, another necessary resource for quantum advantages is non-Gaussianity. In this work, we propose a witness based on previously known relations between metrological power and quantum correlations, to detect a strong form of entanglement that only non-Gaussian states possess and that cannot be undone by passive optical operations, i.e., entanglement in all mode bases. The strength of our witness is two-fold: it only requires measurements in one basis to check entanglement in any arbitrary mode basis; it can be made applicable experimentally using homodyne measurements and without requiring a full tomography of the state.
The entanglement of Gaussian continuous-variable (CV) states is fully determined by the state's second moments. In contrast, some entangled non-Gaussian states evade every second-moment criterion, and non-Gaussian entanglement detection remains an experimental challenge. The p3-PPT criterion detects entanglement using moments of the partial transpose of the density matrix. This criterion was recently extended to CV systems using photon-number-resolving detectors and multi-copy interferometry; here we introduce a single-copy homodyne protocol that detects bipartite CV entanglement via the same criterion. Unbiased U-statistic estimators for the partial-transpose moments p2 and p3 are constructed directly from randomized homodyne data and used to evaluate the p3-PPT entanglement witnesses: a linear one for detection, and a quadratic one whose violation yields a dimension-free lower bound on the entanglement negativity. The protocol estimates p2 and p3 up to additive error ε at Fock cutoff N from O((N+1)14/3/ε2) measurements at fixed confidence. We demonstrate the protocol on six families of Gaussian and non-Gaussian states, reaching 95% empirical one-sided detection probability from ∼103 to 104 homodyne measurements for states with nˉ≈2, placing non-Gaussian entanglement detection within reach of current homodyne experiments.
Very recently, strongly non-Gaussian states have been observed via a direct three-mode spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a superconducting cavity [Phys. Rev. X 10, 011011 (2020)]. The created multiphoton non-Gaussian correlations are attractive and useful for various quantum information tasks. However, how to detect and classify multipartite non-Gaussian entanglement has not yet been completely understood. Here, we present an experimentally practical method to characterize continuous-variable multipartite non-Gaussian entanglement, by introducing a class of nonlinear squeezing parameters involving accessible higher-order moments of phase-space quadratures. As these parameters can depend on arbitrary operators, we consider their analytical optimization over a set of practical measurements, in order to detect different classes of multipartite non-Gaussian entanglement ranging from fully separable to fully inseparable. We demonstrate that the nonlinear squeezing parameters act as an excellent approximation to the quantum Fisher information within accessible third-order moments. The level of the nonlinear squeezing quantifies the metrological advantage provided by those entangled states. Moreover, by analyzing the above-mentioned experiment, we show that our method can be readily used to confirm fully inseparable tripartite non-Gaussian entangled states by performing a limited number of measurements without requiring full knowledge of the quantum state.
The dimensionality of entanglement in high-dimensional quantum systems is quantified by the Schmidt number, whose large value signals potential advantages for quantum communication and quantum computation. A commonly used approach to practical Schmidt-number detection in finite-dimensional systems is based on the estimation of fidelities to pure states with large entanglement dimensionality or lower bounds to these fidelities. However, for mode-entangled continuous-variable systems, the corresponding measurements are typically difficult to realize. Here, we introduce and assess fidelity bounds for Schmidt-number detection based on practically more accessible measurements of the first and second statistical moments of arbitrary continuous-variable quantum states. We provide analytical formulas that allow evaluating these bounds and test them for families of Gaussian and non-Gaussian states, including two-mode squeezed thermal states and photon-added displaced two-mode squeezed vacuum states. We compare our bounds to other methods for the certification of high-dimensional entanglement based on the same measurements.
Distinguishing quantum states that admit a classical counterpart from those that exhibit nonclassicality has long been a central issue in quantum optics. Finding an implementable criterion certifying optical nonclassicality (i.e., the incompatibility with a statistical mixture of coherent states) is of major importance as it often is a prerequisite to quantum information processes. A hierarchy of conditions for detecting whether a quantum state exhibits optical nonclassicality can be written based on matrices of moments of the optical field [E. V. Shchukin and W. Vogel, Phys. Rev. A 72, 043808 (2005)]. Here, we design optical nonclassicality observables that act on several replicas of a quantum state and whose expectation value coincides with the determinant of these matrices, hence providing witnesses of optical nonclassicality that overcome the need for state tomography. These multicopy observables are used to construct a family of physically implementable schemes involving linear optical operations and photon number detectors.