The continuous-variable (CV) quadratic phase gate is one of the most fundamental CV quantum gates for universal CV quantum computation, while its experimental realization still remains a challenge. Here we propose a novel and experimentally feasible scheme to realize optical CV quadratic phase gate via Faraday interaction in an atomic ensemble. The gate is performed by simply sending an optical beam three times through an atomic medium prepared in coherent spin state. The fidelity of the gate can ideally run up to one. We show that the scheme also works well as a device to generate optical polarization squeezing. Considering the noise effects due to atomic decoherence and light losses, we find that the observed fidelities of gate operation and the attainable degree of polarization squeezing are still quite high.
The continuous-variable (CV) quadratic phase gate is one of the most fundamental CV quantum gates for universal CV quantum computation, while its experimental realization still remains a challenge. Here we propose a novel and experimentally feasible scheme to realize optical CV quadratic phase gate via Faraday interaction in an atomic ensemble. The gate is performed by simply sending an optical beam three times through an atomic medium prepared in coherent spin state. The fidelity of the gate can ideally run up to one. We show that the scheme also works well as a device to generate optical polarization squeezing. Considering the noise effects due to atomic decoherence and light losses, we find that the observed fidelities of gate operation and the attainable degree of polarization squeezing are still quite high.
The continuous-variable controlled-Z gate is a canonical two-mode gate for universal continuous-variable quantum computation. It is considered as one of the most fundamental continuous-variable quantum gates. Here we present a scheme for realizing continuous-variable controlled-Z gate between two optical beams using an atomic ensemble. The gate is performed by simply sending the two beams propagating in two orthogonal directions twice through a spin-squeezed atomic medium. Its fidelity can run up to one if the input atomic state is infinitely squeezed. Considering the noise effects due to atomic decoherence and light losses, we show that the observed fidelities of the scheme are still quite high within presently available techniques.
In the face of the recent development of the time-domain detection method for short pulses, typically less than 1 microsecond, we consider a feasible method for a continuous variable quantum swapping gate between light polarization and atomic spin ensemble by three successive Faraday rotation interactions using short pulses. This method does not need any particular initial states and its fidelity can ideally run up to one. It also works as a quantum memory of light and a device to generate a nonclassical state of the spin. To evaluate a quantum nature of the proposed swapping gate, we calculated its average fidelity for a set of the coherent states with a Gaussian distribution and confirmed the efficiency as a quantum gate as well as a quantum memory of light.
Nonlocal quantum gates, coupling quantum systems located at a distance, are crucial for distributed quantum computing. To this aim, high-capacity optical noiseless connections between different processing units are essential for transmitting large amounts of information per mode. Simultaneously, optical quantum computing offers future high-speed multimode quantum processors. We propose a library of feasible protocols to implement a necessary nonlocal continuous-variable (CV) quantum nondemolition (QND) gate between two distant users sharing a quantum channel and exploiting classical communication. The users are endowed with a newly achieved high-fidelity and large-bandwith element - single-pass phase-sensitive optical parametric amplifier (OPA), that allows for both online squeezing and channel-loss compensation. The use of OPAs enhances quality of the resulting gate in terms of both excess noise and entangling capability. The proposed schemes are also applicable to CV cluster state fusion, providing a first step towards development of distributed CV measurement-based quantum computation.
We demonstrate a quadratic phase gate for one-way quantum computation in the continuous-variable regime. This canonical gate, together with phase-space displacements and Fourier rotations, completes the set of universal gates for realizing any single-mode Gaussian transformation such as arbitrary squeezing. As opposed to previous implementations of measurement-based squeezers, the current gate is fully controlled by the local oscillator phase of the homodyne detector. Verifying this controllability, we give an experimental demonstration of the principles of one-way quantum computation over continuous variables. Moreover, we can observe sub-shot-noise quadrature variances in the output states, confirming that nonclassical states are created through cluster computation.
In this thesis I explore the use of collective spin angular momentum as a platform for quantum information processing. Such systems have several nice features that make them excellent choices for such protocols, especially ones where information is also stored in photonic variables. The longer coherence times of atoms makes it possible to store information from light in atoms for future use, and it is generally easier to couple atomic variables than to create nonlinear interactions of light. Above and beyond the advantages of atomic systems, collective atomic systems have additional strengths. In the limit of a large number of atoms, the collective variables of atomic systems have a natural connection to the bosonic algebra of light (known as the Holstein-Primakoff or HP approximation) where components of the collective spin angular momentum effectively act as quadratures, making them natural systems for coupling to light. Also, collectively addressing the atoms allows one to access a large state space without individual addressing of the atoms. A natural first step towards control of these collective variables is generating large amounts of atomic spin squeezing. In the HP approximation going from rotations to squeezing corresponds to going from linear to quadratic interactions in the atomic quadratures; for extremely large squeezing one should see the breakdown of the HP approximation and the ability to generate arbitrary collective atomic states. I have sought to improve previous schemes for the spin squeezing of atomic ensembles, such as the proposal of Takeuchi et. al. based on coherent quantum feedback. In this scheme a beam of linearly polarized light passes through the atomic ensemble (prepared in a coherent state), coupling to the atoms through a state-dependent index of refraction (the Faraday effect). The light is then passed through a wave-plate and reflected back through the atoms for a second pass. This double-pass scheme leads to an effective nonlinearity as the atomic fluctuations are mapped onto the light on the first pass and then back on to the atoms in the second pass. The light acts as a bus coupling each atom to each of the others. This nonlinear interaction forms a shearing of the atomic coherent state that results in squeezing. The light is entangled to the atoms through these interactions, and remains entangled as it escapes the system. This leads to decoherence of the atoms as the light is lost to the environment, reducing the amount of spin squeezing achieved. The first step towards improving the double-pass scheme was to add a quantum eraser step in which the light is disentangled from the squeezed atoms. By first measuring one quadrature of the light, and then performing a measurement-dependent rotation on the atomic ensemble, it is possible to decouple the atoms and light so that the loss of the light does not reduce the atomic squeezing. This results in an improvement of the rate of atomic spin squeezing. The nonlinear shearing interaction that remains still falls short of the exponential squeezing seen in optical parametric amplification. The reason for this can be seen by decomposing the shearing interaction into squeezing along a given quadrature followed by a rotation. The rotation leads to a constantly changing axis along which the squeezing occurs, and thus the squeezing builds up more slowly. This can be corrected for by breaking up the light pulse into a sequence of small pulses, and performing a small phase matching rotation after each pulse. The squeezing then adds up along a constant direction, rather than along a constantly varying direction. This results in still further improvement of the rate of atomic spin squeezing. A complete model includes the effects of photon-atom scattering and other noise and loss effects on the overall rate of squeezing. Previous derivations of noise due to photon-atom scattering have started with the unjustified assumptions that the atomic and photonic decoherence channels were both Gaussian and independent of correlations between the two subsystems. They then proceed with very general statistical arguments that rely upon these simplifications. My work begins with the more fundamental master equation picture in which I find the Linblad jump operators. I find that in general the photonic and atomic loss channels are not independent, with the intensity of the light dictating the details of this dependence, and find the conditions under which the Gaussian approximation holds. Squeezing and loss is initially treated assuming ensembles of spin-1/2 atoms, but this work is further extended to higher dimensional subsystems. For a higher spin case, preparing the atoms in spin coherent states is not optimal. One can engineer a stronger interaction by preparing the atoms in an atomic "cat state", i.e., a superposition of the two stretch states along the direction of propagation of the light beam. The fluctuations of such a state are more strongly coupled to the light, resulting in a stronger nonlinearity. This leads to strong correlations between the atoms, but they are not immediately useful for squeezing; the cat state must be coherently mapped to a coherent state to achieve atomic spin squeezing. The state created in this manner is ultimately more squeezed than that achieved with the same interaction but prepared initially in a coherent state.
We explore in detail the possibility of intracavity generation of continuous-variable (CV) entangled states of light beams under mode phase-locked conditions. We show that such quantum states can be generated in a self-phase-locked nondegenerate optical parametric oscillator (NOPO) based on type II phase-matched down-conversion combined with a linear mixer of two orthogonally polarized modes of the subharmonics in a cavity. A quantum theory of this device, recently realized in the experiment, is developed for both subthreshold and above-threshold operational regimes. We show that the system providing high-level phase coherence between two generated modes, unlike the ordinary NOPO, also exhibits different types of quantum correlations between photon numbers and phases of these modes. We quantify the CV entanglement as two-mode squeezing and show that the maximal degree of the integral two-mode squeezing (which is 50 relative to the level of vacuum fluctuations) is achieved at the pump field intensity close to the generation threshold of a self-phase-locked NOPO, provided that the constant of linear coupling between the two polarizations is much less than the mode detunings. The peculiarities of CV entanglement for the case of unitary, nondissipative dynamics of the system under consideration are also cleared up.