We investigate the nonclassicality of photon-added coherent states in the photon-loss channel by exploring the entanglement potential and negative Wigner distribution. The total negative probability defined by the volume of the negative part of the Wigner function reduces with the decay time. The total negative probability and the entanglement potential of pure photon-added coherent states exhibit the similar dependence on the beam intensity. The reduce of the total negative probability is consistent with the behavior of entanglement potential for the dissipative single-photon-added coherent state at short decay times.
We introduce an operational criterion to identify Wigner function (WF) negativity for an arbitrary quantum state within the framework of quantum non-demolition measurements. This criterion corresponds to experimentally accessible schemes that enable a direct measurement of the WF, and establishes the coherent-state basis as a privileged basis for determining when the WF exhibits negative regions. We show that the absence (presence) of coherent superpositions in the coherent-state basis provides direct information about the positivity (negativity) of the WF. In particular, the absence of such superpositions constitutes a sufficient condition for WF positivity. Although a general proof of necessity remains elusive, we demonstrate that this condition is also necessary in two relevant cases: Schrödinger-cat states and higher-order cat states on a circle. More precisely, for Schrödinger-cat states we establish a necessary and sufficient condition for the positivity of the WF in full generality, whereas for high-order cat states on a circle we derive an analogous condition in the limit of a large number of densely packed coherent states.
In a recent paper, Tilma, Everitt et al. derived a generalized Wigner function that can characterize both the discrete and continuous variable states, i.e., hybrid states. As such, one can expect that the negativity of the generalized Wigner function applied to the hybrid states can reveal their nonclassicality, in analogy with the well-known Wigner function defined for the continuous variable states. In this work, we demonstrate that, indeed, the negativity volume of the generalized Wigner function of the hybrid bipartite states can be used as an entanglement witness for such states, provided that it exceeds a certain critical value. In particular, we study hybrid bipartite qubit-bosonic states and provide a qubit-Schrödinger cat state as an example. Since the detection of the generalized Wigner function of hybrid bipartite states in phase space can be experimentally simpler than the tomographic reconstruction of the corresponding density matrix, our results, therefore, present a convenient tool in the entanglement identification of such states.
Wigner negativity has been shown to be a resource in quantum computing, raising the question of how to efficiently produce states with a large Wigner negativity. Cubic Gaussian states, obtained when a cubic gate is applied to a Gaussian state, have been proposed as candidates for this purpose. We show that cubic Gaussian states with a large Wigner negativity
N necessarily have a short decoherence time
τ that is bounded above by
N−2. In other words, a large Wigner negativity comes at a cost: the decoherence time
τ of cubic Gaussian states decreases at least quadratically in the negativity
N. Maximizing
τ at fixed Wigner negativity
N, we show that this upper bound is reached by optimal cubic Gaussian states. They have the property that for large negativity, the optimal squeezing scales as
lnN and the optimal cubicity as
N−1. Optimal cubic Gaussian states with large negativity can therefore be constructed with small cubicity, provided sufficient squeezing is applied. However, their decoherence time decreases with growing negativity. In addition, we show that their preparation is extremely sensitive to thermal noise. Finally, we compare, for each integer
n, the optimal cubic Gaussian state with the
nth Fock state that has the same negativity: despite their pronounced differences in photon number distribution and Wigner function, we show that they have similar, be it slightly larger, decoherence times and entanglement generating potential through a beam splitter.