Continuous variable entanglement and optical orbital angular momentum: a hybrid route to quantum communication
Adriana Pecoraro
In the present dissertation we describe the generation of a Gaussian bipartite entangled state in which the two subsystems are multi-distinguishable thanks to the fact that they have different polarizations and carry an opposite amount of orbital angular momentum along the propagation direction.
Polarization entangled states are produced by using an optical parametric oscillator as spontaneous parametric down conversion source. This is able to produce a bipartite state consisting of collinear thermal crossed polarized modes exhibiting entanglement. These two modes have the same frequency and constitute a continuous variable bipartite entangled system in which each of the modes can be labeled by the polarization degree of freedom. Once these two polarization entangled states are produced, the bipartite state is endowed with an additional degree of freedom constituted by orbital angular momentum, that makes possible to further distinguish between these two co-propagating modes. The two-dimensional Hilbert polarization space is mapped into the orbital angular momentum one by means of Gaussian operations i.e. physical trasformations that preserve Gaussianity. In order to achieve this task we used a liquid crystal optical device called q-plate. This device is able to couple polarization and orbital angular momentum degrees of freedom by making the passing through beam acquire orbital angular momentum that depends on the topological charge q of the device and on the polarization of the incoming beam. Moreover, the setup enginereed to achieve this task is also capable of generating squeezed vortex beams i.e. single mode states for which the quadrature noise is below the standard quantum limit.
After producing the bipartite entangled state it enters the characterizaton stage. Its quantumness is investigated by witnessing both squeezing and non classical correlations via balanced optical homodyne, a phase sensitive detection method that permits, by measuring the electromagnetic field quadratures statistics, to reconstruct the state of the system. In order to retrieve the quantum state with a high fidelity, homodyne detector needs to be optimized. This, besides imposing stringent conditions on the optical components involved in the setup, forces to improve the mode matching between the signal and the local oscillator that plays a central role in determining the overall detector efficiency. Although homodyne is a consolidated detection scheme, herein it is proposed an innovative extension of this technique to structured modes that opens the doors for homodyning directly in the orbital angular momentum space. The very central role, in this detection method, is played by interference between the signal under investigation and a strong coherent reference beam called local oscillator. Besides behaving as an amplifier for the quadrature under scrutiny, local oscillator also acts as a spatial and frequency filter, selecting for the measure the part of the signal that shares with it the same spatio-temporal properties. Hence, in order to ensure interference, in case of a signal carrying orbital angular momentum a further effort is required. Indeed, also the local oscillator has to be in the same helical mode, in particular the two beams have to transport the same amount of orbital angular momentum along the propagation direction. So by suitably designing the overall experimental setup it is possible to homodyne the bipartite entangled state carrying orbital angular momentum directly in this degree of freedom Hilbert space. Once the covariance matrix of the bipartite Gaussian state has been reconstructed, thanks to Gaussianity, it is possible to assess entanglement
between the vortex modes by means of entanglement criteria based on covariance matrix elements such as the Peres-Horodecki-Simon (PHS) and the Duan ones.
•Jan 1, 2017•0 citations