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Experiments with Generalized Quantum Measurements and Entangled Photon Pairs

Devon N. Biggerstaff

Published Nov 2, 2009• 2 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

This thesis describes a linear-optical device for performing generalized quantum measurements \non quantum bits (qubits) encoded in photon polarization, the implementation \nof said device, and its use in two diff erent but related experiments. The device works by \ncoupling the polarization degree of freedom of a single photon to a `mode' or `path' degree \nof freedom, and performing a projective measurement in this enlarged state space in order \nto implement a tunable four-outcome positive operator-valued measure (POVM) on the \ninitial quantum bit. In both experiments, this POVM is performed on one photon from a \ntwo-photon entangled state created through spontaneous parametric down-conversion. \nIn the fi rst experiment, this entangled state is viewed as a two-qubit photonic cluster \nstate, and the POVM as a means of increasing the computational power of a given resource \nstate in the cluster-state model of quantum computing. This model traditionally \nachieves deterministic outputs to quantum computations via successive projective measurements, \nalong with classical feedforward to choose measurement bases, on qubits in a highly entangled \nresource called a cluster state; we show that `virtual qubits' can be appended to a \ngiven cluster by replacing some projective measurements with POVMs. Our experimental \ndemonstration fully realizes an arbitrary three-qubit cluster computation by implementing \nthe POVM, as well as fast active feed-forward, on our two-qubit photonic cluster state. \nOver 206 diff erent computations, the average output delity is 0.9832 +/- 0.0002; furthermore \nthe error contribution from our POVM device and feedforward is only of order 10^-3, less \nthan some recent thresholds for fault-tolerant cluster computing. \nIn the second experiment, the POVM device is used to implement a deterministic \nprotocol for remote state preparation (RSP) of arbitrary photon polarization qubits. RSP \nis the act of preparing a quantum state at a remote location without actually transmitting \nthe state itself. We are able to remotely prepare 178 diff erent pure and mixed qubit \nstates with an average delity of 0.995. Furthermore, we study the the fidelity achievable \nby RSP protocols permitting only classical communication, without shared entanglement, \nand compare the resulting benchmarks for average fidelity against our experimental results. \nOur experimentally-achieved average fi delities surpass the classical thresholds whenever \nclassical communication alone does not trivially allow for perfect RSP.

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Physical Review A•Aug 9, 2007•84 citations
This thesis describes a linear-optical device for performing generalized quantum measurements \non quantum bits (qubits) encoded in photon polarization, the implementation \nof said device, and its use in two diff erent but related experiments. The device works by \ncoupling the polarization degree of freedom of a single photon to a mode' or path' degree \nof freedom, and performing a projective measurement in this enlarged state space in order \nto implement a tunable four-outcome positive operator-valued measure (POVM) on the \ninitial quantum bit. In both experiments, this POVM is performed on one photon from a \ntwo-photon entangled state created through spontaneous parametric down-conversion. \nIn the fi rst experiment, this entangled state is viewed as a two-qubit photonic cluster \nstate, and the POVM as a means of increasing the computational power of a given resource \nstate in the cluster-state model of quantum computing. This model traditionally \nachieves deterministic outputs to quantum computations via successive projective measurements, \nalong with classical feedforward to choose measurement bases, on qubits in a highly entangled \nresource called a cluster state; we show that `virtual qubits' can be appended to a \ngiven cluster by replacing some projective measurements with POVMs. Our experimental \ndemonstration fully realizes an arbitrary three-qubit cluster computation by implementing \nthe POVM, as well as fast active feed-forward, on our two-qubit photonic cluster state. \nOver 206 diff erent computations, the average output delity is 0.9832 +/- 0.0002; furthermore \nthe error contribution from our POVM device and feedforward is only of order 10^-3, less \nthan some recent thresholds for fault-tolerant cluster computing. \nIn the second experiment, the POVM device is used to implement a deterministic \nprotocol for remote state preparation (RSP) of arbitrary photon polarization qubits. RSP \nis the act of preparing a quantum state at a remote location without actually transmitting \nthe state itself. We are able to remotely prepare 178 diff erent pure and mixed qubit \nstates with an average delity of 0.995. Furthermore, we study the the fidelity achievable \nby RSP protocols permitting only classical communication, without shared entanglement, \nand compare the resulting benchmarks for average fidelity against our experimental results. \nOur experimentally-achieved average fi delities surpass the classical thresholds whenever \nclassical communication alone does not trivially allow for perfect RSP.
We introduce and implement a technique to extend the quantum computational power of cluster states by replacing some projective measurements with generalized quantum measurements (POVMs). As an experimental demonstration we fully realize an arbitrary three-qubit cluster computation by implementing a tunable linear-optical POVM, as well as fast active feedforward, on a two-qubit photonic cluster state. Over 206 different computations, the average output fidelity is 0.9832+/-0.0002; furthermore the error contribution from our POVM device and feedforward is only of O(10(-3)), less than some recent thresholds for fault-tolerant cluster computing.
Entanglement lies at the heart of quantum mechanics and challenged the intuition of physicists ever since it was discovered. At the same time, it is a powerful tool that serves as a key resource for quantum communication and quantum computation schemes. Many of these applications rely on multiparticle entanglement, whose description, generation and manipulation became therefore a very active field in theoretical and experimental quantum information science. The goals are here to classify and understand the different types of entanglement, to find new applications and to control and analyze the quantum states experimentally. In this thesis, the experimental observation and analysis of two different types of four-photon polarization entangled states is presented: The cluster state and the symmetric Dicke state with two excitations. For this purpose, experimental setups based on spontaneous parametric down conversion and linear optics with conditional detection were designed. They allowed to observe the cluster state with a fidelity of 74.1 % and the symmetric Dicke state with a fidelity of 84.4 %. The cluster state experiment included the development of a new instrument that is of interest for linear optics quantum logic in general: A probabilistic controlled phase gate that is, due to the simplification of a previous approach, highly stable and can actually be used in multiphoton experiments. The quality of the gate is evaluated by analyzing its entangling capability and by performing full process tomography. The achieved results demonstrate that this device is well suited for implementation in various multiphoton quantum information protocols. In order to study the observed quantum states, efficient analysis tools are introduced. It was possible to verify that essential properties of the ideal states are indeed reproduced in the experiment, among others, the presence of genuine four-partite entanglement. A particular focus is put on the behavior of the states under projective measurements and photon loss. Several new insights in their entanglement structure are revealed and verified experimentally. We further demonstrate properties that are characteristic for the entanglement classes of the states. These can be used to infer the applicability of the observed states for certain distributed quantum communication applications. The presented experiments are generic for the design of setups to observe cluster- and symmetric Dicke states with a higher number of photons. Furthermore, also the efficient non-tomographic methods for state analysis we employ can directly be generalized to experiments with higher qubit numbers, where the reduction of the experimental effort for state analysis is even more crucial.
This thesis fathoms the possibilities and limitations of measurements in quantum optics. After a short introduction to the general aspects of measurements in quantum mechanics, it presents three examples of a measurement process in concrete applications to quantum optics. For one, while operators describing quantities of interest might have a simple theoretical form, it is often hard to actually implement a measurement of their expectation values experimentally. This situation is encountered in the first part which is devoted to the measurement of quantum statistical properties of a light beam. In contrast to classical optics, these statistics are not fully determined by first- and second-order correlations. Instead, higher-order correlations, usually described by non-Hermitian operators, are necessary to characterize the quantum state completely. A particular example is the N-photon Fock state, for which only a measurement of the Nth-order correlations allows for a full characterization. Here, we present a new method how to measure an important class of Nth-order correlations for arbitrary N in a single spatial mode with two polarizations with limited experimental resources. The second part is again centered around the realization of specific measurement operators for photon correlation measurements. However, in contrast to the previous chapter, these measurements are not an end in their own, but are designed to create specific quantum states as a consequence of the measurement process: A suitable measurement of photons emitted by a number of atoms allows to transfer the atoms into long-lived entangled states. We find that with this method it is possible to entangle two remote atomic qubits to an arbitrary and well-defined degree. Furthermore, we show how to generate two families of quantum states in an arbitrary number of remote atomic qubits: one family consists of all -- symmetric and non-symmetric -- total angular momentum eigenstates in N remote qubits, the other is a family of cluster states. It is also systematically investigated whether the technique of quantum state engineering by projective measurements allows for the creation of any arbitrary state. We find explicit solutions for the case of two and three qubits, while it is shown that no solution exist for N > 6. We conclude the section by proving that with some changes in the setup, this measurement-based quantum state engineering technique allows to create the same states among the scattered photons themselves rather than among the emitting atoms. The last part is devoted to the amount of information one is able to gain about a given system when performing a measurement. The corresponding limits of information are investigated at the example of the duality that arises in a two-way interferometer between the visibility of the interference pattern and the knowledge about the path of the interfering object. We show that there exist correlations between the phase difference the interfering object acquires on its way through the interferometer and the amount of which-way information retrievable from certain observables of the which-way detector. In this way, the which-way information becomes a phase-dependent quantity. In particular, we find that for certain values of the phase shift, the amount of extractable which-way information can be larger than allowed by phase-independent measurement. This property is put to use to find the optimal observable for the which-way detector readout in dependence on the phase of the interfering object. Following this strategy, we are able to gain more which-way information than previously thought possible.
We implement experimentally a deterministic method to prepare and measure the so-called single-photon two-qubit entangled states or single-photon Bell states, in which the polarization and the spatial modes of a single photon each represent a quantum bit. All four single-photon Bell states can be easily prepared and measured deterministically using linear optical elements alone. We also discuss how this method can be used for the recently proposed single-photon two-qubit quantum cryptography scheme.
We report an experimental implementation of deterministic preparation and measurement of single-photon two-qubit entangled states, in which the polarization and the spatial modes of a single-photon each represent a quantum bit. It is demonstrated that all four single-photon two-qubit entangled states (Bell states) can be easily prepared and measured deterministically using linear optical elements alone. We also discuss how this scheme can be used for implementing recently proposed single-photon two-qubit quantum cryptography.
We demonstrate an experiment for remote preparation of arbitrary photon polarization states. With local operations, polarization measurement, and one way classical communication, any states lying on and inside the Poincar\'e sphere can be remotely prepared. For arbitrary pure states, the efficiency is 100% with a communication cost of one entanglement bit and two classical bits. For mixed states, polarization insensitive measurement is introduced and the classical communication cost is one bit. Spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) is employed as an entanglement source. The remotely prepared qubits are estimated via quantum tomography process and fidelity between the experimentally prepared state and the expected state is considered to test the data. We achieve remote preparation of 13 states with fidelities all above 0.994.