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New Journal of Physics

Directly comparing entanglement-enhancing non-Gaussian operations

Tim J. Bartley, Ian A. Walmsley

Published Feb 13, 2015• 54 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Single-photon-level non-Gaussian operations—photon addition, photon subtraction, and their coherent superposition—are powerful tools with which to increase entanglement in continuous-variable optical states. Although such operations are typically not deterministic, there may be other advantages such as noiseless manipulation. Therefore, to fully account for the efficacy of a particular non-Gaussian operation in a practical scenario, we develop figures of merit which trade off the advantages of such protocols against their success probability. Specifically, we define 'entanglement enhancement rate' as the increase in entanglement per trial of a generic non-Gaussian operation on a two-mode squeezed vacuum (TMSV) state. We consider states generated by photon-subtraction, photon-addition and a coherent superposition of subtraction and addition. We compare each strategy when applied to one or both modes of a TMSV state, and also in the presence of channel losses prior to the operation. In many cases, additional properties are analytically calculable, including excess noise arising from the operation and the fidelity of the resulting states to particular Gaussian and non-Gaussian states. Finally, by incorporating loss, we derive optimal interaction parameters for each non-Gaussian operation which maximize the effectiveness of the particular protocol under investigation.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/17/2/023038

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Single-photon-level non-Gaussian operations—photon addition, photon subtraction, and their coherent superposition—are powerful tools with which to increase entanglement in continuous-variable optical states. Although such operations are typically not deterministic, there may be other advantages such as noiseless manipulation. Therefore, to fully account for the efficacy of a particular non-Gaussian operation in a practical scenario, we develop figures of merit which trade off the advantages of such protocols against their success probability. Specifically, we define 'entanglement enhancement rate' as the increase in entanglement per trial of a generic non-Gaussian operation on a two-mode squeezed vacuum (TMSV) state. We consider states generated by photon-subtraction, photon-addition and a coherent superposition of subtraction and addition. We compare each strategy when applied to one or both modes of a TMSV state, and also in the presence of channel losses prior to the operation. In many cases, additional properties are analytically calculable, including excess noise arising from the operation and the fidelity of the resulting states to particular Gaussian and non-Gaussian states. Finally, by incorporating loss, we derive optimal interaction parameters for each non-Gaussian operation which maximize the effectiveness of the particular protocol under investigation.
The non-Gaussian operations effected by adding or subtracting a photon on entangled optical beams emerging from a parametric down-conversion process have been suggested to enhance entanglement. Heralded photon addition or subtraction is, as a matter of fact, at the heart of continuous-variable entanglement distillation. The use of such processes has recently been experimentally demonstrated in the context of the generation of optical coherent-state superpositions or the verification of canonical commutation relations. Here, we carry out a systematic study of the effect of local photon additions and subtractions on a two-mode squeezed vacuum state, showing that the entanglement generally increases with the number of such operations. This is analytically proven when additions or subtractions are restricted to one mode only, while we observe that the highest entanglement is achieved when these operations are equally shared between the two modes. We also note that adding photons typically provides a stronger entanglement enhancement than subtracting photons, while photon subtraction performs better in terms of energy efficiency. Furthermore, we analyze the interplay between entanglement and non-Gaussianity, showing that it is more subtle than previously expected.
Subtracting photons from a two-mode squeezed state is a well-known method to increase entanglement. We analyze different strategies of local photon subtraction from a two-mode squeezed state in terms of entanglement gain and success probability. We develop a general framework that incorporates imperfections and losses in all stages of the process: before, during, and after subtraction. By combining all three effects into a single efficiency parameter, we provide analytical and numerical results for subtraction strategies using photon-number-resolving and threshold detectors. We compare the entanglement gain afforded by symmetric and asymmetric subtraction scenarios across the two modes. For a given amount of loss, we identify an optimized set of parameters, such as initial squeezing and subtraction beam splitter transmissivity, that maximize the entanglement gain rate. We identify regimes for which asymmetric subtraction of different Fock states on the two modes outperforms symmetric strategies. In the lossless limit, subtracting a single photon from one mode always produces the highest entanglement gain rate. In the lossy case, the optimal strategy depends strongly on the losses on each mode individually, such that there is no general optimal strategy. Rather, taking losses on each mode as the only input parameters, we can identify the optimal subtraction strategy and required beam splitter transmissivities and initial squeezing parameter. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for the distillation of continuous-variable quantum entanglement.
We theoretically analyze the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) correlation, the quadrature squeezing, and the continuous-variable quantum teleportation when considering non-Gaussian entangled states generated by applying multiple-photon subtraction and multiple-photon addition to a two-mode squeezed vacuum state (TMSVs). Our results indicate that in the case of the multiple-photon-subtracted TMSVs with symmetric operations, the corresponding EPR correlation, the two-mode squeezing degree, the sum squeezing, and the fidelity of teleporting a coherent state or a squeezed vacuum state can be enhanced for any squeezing parameter rrr and these enhancements increase with the number of subtracted photons in the low-squeezing regime, while asymmetric multiple-photon subtractions will generally reduce these quantities. For the multiple-photon-added TMSVs, although it holds stronger entanglement, its EPR correlation, two-mode squeezing, sum squeezing, and the fidelity of a coherent state are always smaller than that of the TMSVs. Only when considering the case of teleporting a squeezed vacuum state does the symmetric photon addition make somewhat of an improvement in the fidelity for large-squeezing parameters. In addition, we analytically prove that a one-mode multiple-photon-subtracted TMSVs is equivalent to that of the one-mode multiple-photon-added one. And one-mode multiple-photon operations will diminish the above four quantities for any squeezing parameter rrr.
Photon subtraction (PS), due to its feasibility in physical implementation, has been widely utilized in Gaussian entanglement distillation. However, in this paper, we will show that photon addition (PA) can be employed to provide an additional enhancement in both the quality of distilled entanglement and the success probability if the input state is a weak two-mode squeezed vacuum state. Moreover, compared with biside PS, the distillation probability gains a $O(\frac{1}{{\ensuremath{\lambda}}^{2}})$ improvement, which increases rapidly when $\ensuremath{\lambda}\ensuremath{\ll}1$. Our PA-based scheme is obtained first by single-photon injection and later by vacuum state projection. The performance of PA in the presence of both an approximated single photon and amplitude-damping noise has been analyzed. Our result sheds more light on the indispensable non-Gaussian ingredients in Gaussian-state distillation and could be of great use in developing more efficient distillation schemes. Finally, the sensitivity of the PA scheme to inefficient photon detection has also been investigated.
In this work we focus on evaluating the effectiveness of two non-Gaussian operations, photon subtraction (PS) and quantum scissors (QS) in terms of Continuous Variable (CV)-Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) over lossy channels. Each operation is analysed in two scenarios, one with the operation applied transmitter-side to a Two- Mode Squeezed Vacuum (TMSV) state and a second with the operation applied to the TMSV state receiver-side. We numerically evaluate the entanglement and calculate the QKD key rates produced in all four possible scenarios. Our results show that for a fixed value of initial squeezing in the TMSV state, the states produced by the non-Gaussian operations are more robust to loss, being capable of generating higher key rates for a given loss. More specifically, we find that for values of initial TMSV squeezing below 1.5dB the highest key rates are obtained by means of transmitter-QS. On the other hand, for squeezing above 1.5dB we find that receiver-PS produces higher key rates. Our results will be important for future CV-QKD implementations over free-space channels, such as the Earth-satellite channel.
Quantum illumination takes advantage of quantum entanglement to achieve low error probability for detecting a low reflective object embedded in a noisy thermal bath. The two-mode squeezed state (TMSS), which is a Gaussian state, has been applied to quantum illumination as the detecting states in experiment. The photon-subtracted TMSS has also been proposed to achieve even lower error probability. Here we study quantum illumination with non-Gaussian states generated by photon subtraction and photon addition. Helstrom limit and quantum Chernoff bound are evaluated for comparison between performance of states with the same squeezing strength and with the same signal strength, respectively. Particularly, states generated by asymmetrical coherent superposition of photon subtraction and addition are studied, which are shown by us to have better performance than symmetrical ones. We show that non-Gaussian operations enhance the quantum illumination by introducing both stronger entanglement and signal strength. We then give a strategy on how to choose the optimal states for the best performance in different scenarios.