Most of the attention given to continuous variable systems for quantum information processing has traditionally been focused on Gaussian states. However, non-Gaussianity is an essential requirement for universal quantum computation and entanglement distillation, and can improve the efficiency of other quantum information tasks. Here we report the experimental observation of genuine non-Gaussian entanglement using spatially entangled photon pairs. The quantum correlations are invisible to all second-order tests, which identify only Gaussian entanglement, and are revealed only under application of a higher-order entanglement criterion. Thus, the photons exhibit a variety of entanglement that cannot be reproduced by Gaussian states.
Most of the attention given to continuous variable systems for quantum information processing has traditionally been focused on Gaussian states. However, non-Gaussianity is an essential requirement for universal quantum computation and entanglement distillation, and can improve the efficiency of other quantum information tasks. Here we report the experimental observation of genuine non-Gaussian entanglement using spatially entangled photon pairs. The quantum correlations are invisible to all second-order tests, which identify only Gaussian entanglement, and are revealed only under application of a higher-order entanglement criterion. Thus, the photons exhibit a variety of entanglement that cannot be reproduced by Gaussian states.
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.
Entanglement is central to quantum physics, yet detecting and exploiting it in non-Gaussian systems remains a major challenge. In continuous variable platforms, standard inseparability criteria based on Gaussian statistics-such as the Duan-Simon criterion-fail when quantum correlations are encoded in higher moments of the field quadratures. Here we introduce a framework for detecting non-Gaussian entanglement using higher-order quadrature cumulants. In the Gaussian limit, the lowest order condition reduces to the Duan criterion, while higher-order violations reveal entanglement inaccessible to second-order methods. We experimentally demonstrate a tomography-free certification of inseparability in photon-subtracted squeezed states of light, where Gaussian witnesses fail despite the presence of entanglement. We further show that such higher-order inseparability enables enhanced quantum teleportation of Wigner negativity as compared to Gaussian protocols. These results identify higher-order cumulants as natural observables for non-Gaussian entanglement and open new routes to harnessing non-Gaussian resources in continuous variable quantum technologies.
The characterisation of quantum correlations, also known as entanglement, is central to quantum information theory. This chapter devotes to techniques and criteria based on second moments to detect the entanglement of Gaussian states. It also devotes 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. The chapter addresses the issues of entanglement distillation and quantum non-locality tests, in whose contexts we shall confront other non-Gaussian operations and states, such as photon subtracted states. It introduces a general criteria based on higher order statistical moments, which will be put to use to detect the quantum correlations of an entangled cat-like state and addresses the issues of entanglement distillation and quantum non-locality tests.
We present a formalism to derive entanglement criteria beyond the Gaussian regime that can be readily tested by only homodyne detection. The measured observable is the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) correlation. Its arbitrary functional form enables us to detect non-Gaussian entanglement even when an entanglement test based on second-order moments fails. We illustrate the power of our experimentally friendly criteria for a broad class of non-Gaussian states under realistic conditions. We also show rigorously that quantum teleportation for continuous variables employs a specific functional form of EPR correlation.
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.
We experimentally generate and tomographically characterize a mixed, genuinely non-Gaussian bipartite continuous-variable entangled state. By testing entanglement in 2$\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}$2-dimensional two-qubit subspaces, entangled qubits are localized within the density matrix, which, first, proves the distillability of the state and, second, is useful to estimate the efficiency and test the applicability of distillation protocols. In our example, the entangled qubits are arranged in the density matrix in an asymmetric way, i.e., entanglement is found between diverse qubits composed of different photon number states, although the entangled state is symmetric under exchanging the modes.