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Frontiers in Optics

Quantum Field State Control and Measurement in a Cavity

J. M. Raimond, S. Deléglise, C. Sayrin, X. Zhou, I. Dotsenko, S. Gleyzes, M. Brune, S. Haroche

Published Jan 1, 2009• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We realize a Quantum Non Demolition measurement of the photon number in a cavity. We evidence quantum jumps of light, Zeno effect and we reconstruct the field's state. This tool is promising for quantum feedback.
DOI
10.1364/fio.2009.jwe4

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We explore experimentally the fundamental projective properties of a quantum measurement and their application in the control of a system's evolution. We perform quantum non-demolition (QND) photon counting on a microwave field trapped in a very-high- Q superconducting cavity, employing circular Rydberg atoms as non-absorbing probes of light. By repeated measurement of the cavity field we demonstrated the freeze of its initially coherent evolution, illustrating the back action of the photon number measurement on the field's phase. On the contrary, by utilizing a weak QND measurement in combination with the control injection of coherent pulses, we plan to force the field to deterministically evolve towards any target photon-number state. This quantum feedback procedure will enable us to prepare and protect photon-number states against decoherence.
We implement a permanent quantum feedback procedure. It prepares on-demand and stabilizes photon-number states in a high-quality superconducting microwave cavity. The feedback uses sensitive circular atoms to probe the cavity field in a Quantum Non Demolition way. This information is used by a controller and an actuator to feed small coherent amplitudes into the cavity, leading it deterministically towards the target state with a high fidelity. Quantum jumps of the photon number are detected and their effect is then actively compensated, protecting this fragile quantum resource against decoherence.
A microscopic system under continuous observation exhibits at random times sudden jumps between its states. The detection of this essential quantum feature requires a quantum non-demolition (QND) measurement1, 2, 3 repeated many times during the system evolution. Quantum jumps of trapped massive particles (electrons, ions or molecules4,5,6,7,8) have been observed, which is not the case of the jumps of light quanta. Usual photodetectors absorb light and are thus unable to detect the same photon twice. They must be replaced by a transparent counter 'seeing' photons without destroying them3. Moreover, the light has to be stored over a duration much longer than the QND detection time. We have fulfilled these challenging conditions and observed photon number quantum jumps. Microwave photons are stored in a superconducting cavity for times in the second range. They are repeatedly probed by a stream of non-absorbing atoms. An atom interferometer measures the atomic dipole phase shift induced by the non-resonant cavity field, so that the final atom state reveals directly the presence of a single photon in the cavity. Sequences of hundreds of atoms highly correlated in the same state, are interrupted by sudden state-switchings. These telegraphic signals record, for the first time, the birth, life and death of individual photons. Applying a similar QND procedure to mesoscopic fields with tens of photons opens new perspectives for the exploration of the quantum to classical boundary9, 10.
The ubiquitous decoherence phenomenon is responsible for the lack of quantum superpositions at the macroscopic scale. It is increasingly difficult to isolate a quantum system from its environment when its size increases. Making use of the weird quantum properties of mesoscopic quantum states thus requires efficient means to combat decoherence. One option is real-time quantum feedback. It features the components of a conventional feedback: measurement of the system's state (sensor), analysis (controller), and feedback action (actuator) aiming to the target state. The random back-action of the measurements by the sensor makes quantum feedback much more difficult than its classical counterpart. Mesoscopic photon number (Fock) states feature a decoherence rate proportional to the photon number. They are thus a simple example of a fragile quantum resource. We demonstrated recently two quantum feedback schemes continuously stabilizing Fock state of a microwave field in a high-quality cavity. Sensitive atoms, crossing the field one at a time, are used as quantum nondemolition (QND) probes of its photon number. The feedback actuator is either a classical source [Sayrin et al., Nature (London) 477, 73 (2011)] or individual resonant atoms emitting or absorbing one photon each [Zhou et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 243602 (2012)]. Both schemes detect the quantum jumps of the photon number and efficiently correct their adverse effects, preparing and preserving a fragile quantum resource. We present an in-depth analysis of our methods, which sheds light onto the fundamental difficulties encountered in quantum feedback, in particular concerning the state estimation algorithm, and onto the ways to circumvent them. These results open the way to informationally optimal QND measurements or to the stabilization of mesoscopic field state superpositions. More generally, they can be cast in a variety of contexts to loosen the tight constraints set by decoherence in quantum metrology and quantum information processing.