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Physical Review A

Quantum state measurement using phase-sensitive amplification in a driven three-level atomic system

Mashhood Ahmad, Shahid Qamar, Muhammad Suhail Zubairy

Published Jul 1, 2001• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Phase-sensitive amplification in a three-level atomic system exhibits interesting features. For example, in the zero-detuning limit and for sufficiently strong driving field, this system becomes an ideal parametric amplifier, whereas, for a weak driving field it is a phase-insensitive amplifier [Ansari et al., Phys. Rev. A 41, 5179 (1990)]. In this paper, we show that this system could be used to measure the quantum state of the radiation field inside a cavity. To reconstruct the quantum state, we amplify it through a three-level atomic system and in the parametric limit, when noise in both the quadratures approaches to zero measure the amplified field quadrature. The complete quadrature distribution is obtained by measuring the quadratures for different values of the driving field phases. The inverse Radon transformation is then employed to reconstruct the original quantum state. Our scheme is insensitive to the problems associated with nonunit detector efficiency in homodyne detection measurement.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.64.023811

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Phase-sensitive amplification in a three-level atomic system exhibits interesting features. For example, in the zero-detuning limit and for sufficiently strong driving field, this system becomes an ideal parametric amplifier, whereas, for a weak driving field it is a phase-insensitive amplifier [Ansari et al., Phys. Rev. A 41, 5179 (1990)]. In this paper, we show that this system could be used to measure the quantum state of the radiation field inside a cavity. To reconstruct the quantum state, we amplify it through a three-level atomic system and in the parametric limit, when noise in both the quadratures approaches to zero measure the amplified field quadrature. The complete quadrature distribution is obtained by measuring the quadratures for different values of the driving field phases. The inverse Radon transformation is then employed to reconstruct the original quantum state. Our scheme is insensitive to the problems associated with nonunit detector efficiency in homodyne detection measurement.
We propose a model for the quantum-state measurement via phase-sensitive amplification. The basic idea is to amplify the quantum state through a two-photon correlated-emission laser, such that there is no noise in the quadrature of interest and all the noise is fed into the conjugate quadrature. The noise-free quadrature is prepared in different phases and then corresponding quadrature distribution is measured. The Wigner function of the initial quantum state is then reconstructed by carrying out inverse Radon transformation familiar in tomographic imaging. This scheme allows us to avoid the deterioration of homodyne detection measurement due to the problem of detector efficiency.
A linear theory of two-photon amplification by three-level atoms in the cascade configuration is developed, where a coherence is induced between the top and bottom levels, by an external classical driving field. It is shown that this system becomes an ideal parametric amplifier for sufficiently strong driving field, whereas for a weak driving field it is a phase-insensitive amplifier. In between these two extremes, one finds phase-sensitive amplification as well as squeezing for a certain range. The system does not, however, reduce to a model studied previously where the atomic coherence was treated as an initial condition. The system is also studied in a cavity configuration: It is predicted that the oscillator may behave as a two-photon correlated emission laser, i.e., its phase diffusion coefficient vanishes.
A process which strongly amplifies both quadrature amplitudes of an oscillatory signal necessarily adds noise. Alternatively, if the information in one quadrature is lost in phase-sensitive amplification, it is possible to completely reconstruct the other quadrature. Here we demonstrate such a nearly perfect phase-sensitive measurement using a cavity optomechanical scheme, characterized by an extremely small noise less than 0.2 quanta. The device also strongly squeezes microwave radiation by 8 dB below vacuum. A source of bright squeezed microwaves opens up applications in manipulations of quantum systems, and noiseless amplification can be used even at modest cryogenic temperatures.
A theory of two-mode phase-sensitive amplification by a three-level atomic system in the cascade configuration is presented, within the framework of the theory of multiwave mixing. Two photons of a strong external pump field induce coherence between the top and bottom levels. It is shown that both quadratures of the field modes acquire unequal gain and added noise. For large values of the dimensionless pump intensity, with a particular choice of its phase, and zero side-mode detuning, the system behaves as a nondegenerate parametric amplifier.
Quantum tomography is the standard method of reconstructing the Wigner function of quantum states of light by means of balanced homodyne detection. The reconstruction quality strongly depends on the photodetectors quantum efficiency and other losses in the measurement setup. In this article we analyze in detail a protocol of enhanced quantum tomography, proposed by Leonhardt and Paul [1] which allows one to reduce the degrading effect of detection losses. It is based on phase-sensitive parametric amplification, with the phase of the amplified quadrature being scanned synchronously with the local oscillator phase. Although with sufficiently strong amplification the protocol enables overcoming any detection inefficiency, it was so far not implemented in the experiment, probably due to the losses in the amplifier. Here we discuss a possible proof-of-principle experiment with a traveling-wave parametric amplifier. We show that with the state-of-the-art optical elements, the protocol enables high fidelity tomographic reconstruction of bright non-classical states of light. We consider two examples: bright squeezed vacuum and squeezed single-photon state, with the latter being a non-Gaussian state and both strongly affected by the losses.