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Photons in a box and 'Schrödinger Cats' of light

S. Haroche

Published Jan 1, 2015• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

The founders of quantum physics used to analyse thought experiments, to discuss state superposition, complementarity and entanglement. They imagined manipulating single particles, such as electrons, atoms or photons; they would be surprised to see that experiments with isolated atoms, molecules or photons are now carried on in many laboratories throughout the world. In our Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics (CQED) studies, we stabilize and count photon number states in the cavity. We also prepare and reconstruct photonic superposition states suspended between different 'classical realities', generating a laboratory version of Schrodinger famous 'Cat', which he had imagined to be simultaneously dead and alive. We have also investigated the decoherence process, which explains the transition between the quantum and the classical worlds. CQED physics has recently been extended to artificial 'atoms' made from superconductors, in a new domain of mesoscopic physics called Circuit QED. This development opens the way to applications in quantum information science.

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The founders of quantum physics used to analyse thought experiments, to discuss state superposition, complementarity and entanglement. They imagined manipulating single particles, such as electrons, atoms or photons; they would be surprised to see that experiments with isolated atoms, molecules or photons are now carried on in many laboratories throughout the world. In our Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics (CQED) studies, we stabilize and count photon number states in the cavity. We also prepare and reconstruct photonic superposition states suspended between different 'classical realities', generating a laboratory version of Schrodinger famous 'Cat', which he had imagined to be simultaneously dead and alive. We have also investigated the decoherence process, which explains the transition between the quantum and the classical worlds. CQED physics has recently been extended to artificial 'atoms' made from superconductors, in a new domain of mesoscopic physics called Circuit QED. This development opens the way to applications in quantum information science.
Bohr played a central role in the interpretation of quantum mechanics.He based many discussions of its strange consequences on thought experiments.He imagined moving slit interferometers, able to record which-path information, he played with photon boxes, storing photons for such long times that they could be weighed.The technological progress provided by quantum physics itself now make it possible to realize some of these thought experiments.We describe in this paper a few experiments based on microwave Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics (CQED) techniques.We trap photons in boxes and weigh them with scales at the atomic level.We are able to count the number of photons in the box without absorbing them in an ideal Quantum Non Demolition measurement of the field intensity.We can record which-path information in an atomic interferometer and directly illustrate complementarity.We can also prepare mesoscopic quantum superpositions reminiscent of the famous Schrödinger cat.We can get insight into the decoherence of these states and into ways to protect them, for instance by quantum feedback strategies.
The counter-intuitive aspects of quantum physics have been illustrated for some time by thought experiments, from Einstein's photon box to Schrödinger's cat. These experiments have now become real, with single particles — electrons, atoms or photons — directly unveiling the weird features of the quantum. State superpositions, entanglement and complementarity define a novel quantum logic that can be harnessed for information processing, raising great hopes for applications. This book describes a class of such thought experiments made real. Juggling with atoms and photons confined in cavities, ions or cold atoms in traps, provides an incentive to shed a new light on the basic concepts of quantum physics. Measurement processes and decoherence at the quantum-classical boundary are highlighted.
Microwave photons trapped in a superconducting cavity constitute an ideal system to realize some of the thought experiments imagined by the founding fathers of quantum physics. The interaction of these trapped photons with Rydberg atoms crossing the cavity illustrates fundamental aspects of measurement theory. The experiments performed with this "photon box" at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) belong to the domain of quantum optics called "Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics." We have realized the non-destructive counting of photons, the recording of field quantum jumps, the preparation and reconstruction of "Schrödinger cat" states of radiation and the study of their decoherence, which provides a striking illustration of the transition from the quantum to the classical world. These experiments have also led to the demonstration of basic steps in quantum information processing, including the deterministic entanglement of atoms and the realization of quantum gates using atoms and photons as quantum bits. This lecture starts with an introduction stressing the connection between the ENS photon box and the ion trap experiments of David Wineland, whose accompanying lecture recalls his own contribution to the field of single particle control. I give then a personal account of the early days of Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics before describing the main experiments performed at ENS during the last twenty years and concluding with a discussion comparing our work to other research dealing with the control of single quantum particles.
Introduction: about quanta, atoms, photons, and cats Experiments which manipulate and study isolated quantum systems have come of age. We can now trap single atoms or photons in a box, entangle them together, observe directly their quantum jumps, and realize in this way some of the thought-experiments imagined by the founding fathers of quantum physics. Schrödinger, who believed that observing an atom so to speak in vivo would remain forever impossible (Schrödinger 1952), would have been amazed, could he have seen what experimenters now achieve by manipulating atoms with lasers. These experiments are not just textbook illustrations of quantum concepts. They are considered by many as first steps towards harnessing the quantum world and realizing classically impossible tasks A quantum computer, for instance, would be a machine using quantum interference effects at a macroscopic scale in order to perform massive parallelism in computation (Nielsen and Chuang 2000). It would achieve an exponential speed-up to solve some problems such as the factoring of large numbers (Shor 1994). Such a machine would manipulate large ensembles of “quantum bits” made of atoms, molecules, or photons. Each bit would evolve in a superposition of two states labeled as “0” and “1”. These bits would be entangled together by quantum gates exploiting electromagnetic interactions between them. The behavior of this machine would be strange and counterintuitive. It would be a system made of thousands of two-level particles following during the calculation a huge number of different routes among which it remains coherently suspended.
Microwave photons trapped in a superconducting cavity constitute an ideal system to realize some of the thought experiments imagined by the founding fathers of quantum physics. The interaction of these trapped photons with Rydberg atoms crossing the cavity illustrates fundamental aspects of measurement theory. The experiments performed with this "photon box" at Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) belong to the domain of quantum optics called "Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics". We have realized the non-destructive counting of photons, the recording of field quantum jumps, the preparation and reconstruction of "Schrödinger cat" states of radiation and the study of their decoherence, which provides a striking illustration of the transition from the quantum to the classical world. These experiments have also led to the demonstration of basic steps in quantum information processing, including the deterministic entanglement of atoms and the realization of quantum gates using atoms and photons as quantum bits. This lecture starts by an introduction stressing the connection between the ENS photon box and the ion trap experiments of David Wineland, whose accompanying lecture recalls his own contribution to the field of single particle control. I give then a personal account of the early days of Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics before describing the main experiments performed at ENS during the last twenty years and concluding by a discussion comparing our work to other researches dealing with the control of single quantum particles.
Microwave photons trapped in a superconducting cavity constitute an ideal system to realize some of the thought experiments imagined by the founding fathers of quantum physics. The interaction of these trapped photons with Rydberg atoms crossing the cavity illustrates fundamental aspects of measurement theory. The experiments performed with this at the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS) belong to the domain of quantum optics called Quantum Electrodynamics. We have realized the non-destructive counting of photons, the recording of field quantum jumps, the preparation and reconstruction of Schrodinger cat states of radiation and the study of their decoherence, which provides a striking illustration of the transition from the quantum to the classical world. These experiments have also led to the demonstration of basic steps in quantum information processing, including the deterministic entanglement of atoms and the realization of quantum gates using atoms and photons as quantum bits. This lecture starts with an introduction stressing the connection between the ENS photon box and the ion trap experiments of David Wineland, whose accompanying lecture recalls his own contribution to the field of single particle control. I give then a personal account of the early days of Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics before describing the main experiments performed at ENS during the last twenty years and concluding with a discussion comparing our work to other research dealing with the control of single quantum particles.