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Physical Review Letters

Nonclassicality of Quantum States: A Hierarchy of Observable Conditions

Th. Richter, W. Vogel

Published Dec 30, 2002• 192 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A necessary and sufficient hierarchy of conditions is derived that is completely equivalent to the failure of the Glauber-Sudarshan P function to be a probability density. The conditions are formulated in terms of experimentally accessible characteristic functions of quadratures.
DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.89.283601

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The characterization of nonclassicality of quantum states in terms of measurable quadrature distributions is studied, on the basis of recently derived necessary and sufficient conditions for the failure of the Glauber–Sudarshan P -function to be a probability density. When the noise-subtracted quadrature distribution, that is the marginal of the P -function, is not a probability density, the same is true for the Glauber–Sudarshan P -function. Inversely, for a complete characterization of a nonclassical P -function one needs phase-sensitive criteria that connect quadrature distributions for different phases. Even for phase-insensitive quantum states, phase-sensitive nonclassicality conditions are needed, as is illustrated for one-photon added thermal states.
Necessary and sufficient conditions are derived that allow one to completely characterize the nonclassicality of an arbitrary quantum state of a harmonic oscillator. Starting from a theorem by Bochner we derive an infinite hierarchy of conditions for the characteristic functions of the quantum state. Following the hierarchy step by step, the nonclassicality can be classified with respect to increasing orders. The full hierarchy of conditions is completely equivalent to the most commonly accepted criterion for nonclassicality: the failure of the Glauber–Sudarshan P -function to be a probability density. Our reformulated version of the criterion is directly related to measurable quantities that can be observed in phase-sensitive measurements such as homodyne detection. It directly generalizes a criterion for nonclassicality (Vogel 2000 Phys. Rev. Lett. 84 1849) that has already been applied in experiments (Lvovsky and Shapiro 2002 Phys. Rev. A 65 033830). Examples of phase-insensitive quantum states are considered that exhibit no first-order nonclassical effects, but that are nonclassical in second order.
Criteria for the nonclassicality of a quantum state of the harmonic oscillator are formulated in terms of normally ordered moments of quadratures. Inequalities are obtained that are equivalent to the failure of the Glauber-Sudarshan PPP function to be a probability density. A possibility to measure the required moments is proposed.
An observable criterion is derived that allows one to distinguish nonclassical states of the harmonic oscillator from those having a classical counterpart. A quantum state is shown to have no classical counterpart if and only if the characteristic functions of the quadrature distributions or the s-parametrized phase-space distributions exhibit a slower decay than for the ground state of the oscillator. This renders it possible to experimentally check the failure of the P function to be a probability measure.
A unified characterization of continuous-variable quantum states is presented that gives general insight in their nonclassical features and, in particular, in their entanglement properties. Nonclassicality is characterized in terms of observable characteristic functions. Equivalently, the nonclassicality conditions are reformulated in terms of moments. The latter approach turns out to be a powerful tool for deriving a complete set of entanglement conditions for bipartite quantum systems, which are fully equivalent to the nonpositivity of the partially transposed density operator. The possibilities of observing the needed moments by balanced homodyne correlation measurements are analyzed.
A quantum state is nonclassical if its Glauber-Sudarshan PPP function fails to be interpreted as a probability density. This quantity is often highly singular, so that its reconstruction is a demanding task. Here we present the experimental determination of a well-behaved PPP function showing negativities for a single-photon-added thermal state. This is a direct visualization of the original definition of nonclassicality. The method can be useful under conditions for which many other signatures of nonclassicality would not persist.