Quantum information is a highly interesting and fast emerging field that involves processing information encoded into quantum systems and their subsequent use in various information tasks. The use of quantum resources such as superposition and entanglement have shown to enhance information processing capabilities beyond classical means in a number of communication, information and computation tasks. In this thesis, we have used single photons to study the advantage of d-level quantum systems (qudits) for a communication task commonly known as random access codes (RACs). A successful experimental demonstration of quantum random access codes (QRACs) with four dimensions is realized to demonstrate that the higher dimensional QRACs not only outperform the classical RACs but also provide an advantage over their quantum bit (qubit) counterparts. QRACs are also studied in regards to two specific applications: certification of true randomness and for testing the non-classicality of quantum systems. A method for increased certification of generated randomness is realized for the former and a successful experimental demonstration of a test of non-classicality with arbitrarily low detection efficiency is provided for the latter. This is followed by an implementation of a QRAC in a one-path communication network consisting of preparation, transformation and measurement devices. We have shown that the distributed QRAC provides optimal success probabilities for a number of tasks. Moreover, a novel quantum protocol for the solution to the problem of dining cryptographers and anonymous veto voting is also presented. This single photon transmission based protocol provides an efficient solution, which is experimentally demonstrated for a 3-party description. Lastly, Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) center in diamond is studied as a potential resource for single photon emission and two methods to enhance the photon collection efficiency are successfully explored. Due to this enhancement, single photons from an NV center may also be used in similar single quantum system based communication experiments.
Quantum information is a highly interesting and fast emerging field that involves processing information encoded into quantum systems and their subsequent use in various information tasks. The use of quantum resources such as superposition and entanglement have shown to enhance information processing capabilities beyond classical means in a number of communication, information and computation tasks. In this thesis, we have used single photons to study the advantage of d-level quantum systems (qudits) for a communication task commonly known as random access codes (RACs). A successful experimental demonstration of quantum random access codes (QRACs) with four dimensions is realized to demonstrate that the higher dimensional QRACs not only outperform the classical RACs but also provide an advantage over their quantum bit (qubit) counterparts. QRACs are also studied in regards to two specific applications: certification of true randomness and for testing the non-classicality of quantum systems. A method for increased certification of generated randomness is realized for the former and a successful experimental demonstration of a test of non-classicality with arbitrarily low detection efficiency is provided for the latter. This is followed by an implementation of a QRAC in a one-path communication network consisting of preparation, transformation and measurement devices. We have shown that the distributed QRAC provides optimal success probabilities for a number of tasks. Moreover, a novel quantum protocol for the solution to the problem of dining cryptographers and anonymous veto voting is also presented. This single photon transmission based protocol provides an efficient solution, which is experimentally demonstrated for a 3-party description. Lastly, Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) center in diamond is studied as a potential resource for single photon emission and two methods to enhance the photon collection efficiency are successfully explored. Due to this enhancement, single photons from an NV center may also be used in similar single quantum system based communication experiments.
Random access codes (RACs) are used by a party to, with limited communication, access an arbitrary subset of information held by another party. Quantum resources are known to enable RACs that break classical limitations. Here, we study quantum and classical RACs with high-level communication. We derive average performances of classical RACs and present families of high-level quantum RACs. Our results show that high-level quantum systems can significantly increase the advantage of quantum RACs over their classical counterparts. We demonstrate our findings in an experimental realization of a quantum RAC with four-level communication.
Entangled photons are at the heart of experimental quantum physics. They were used for the first fundamental tests of quantum theory, and became a basic building block for many novel quantum protocols, such as quantum cryptography, dense coding or teleportation. Therefore, the efficient generation of entangled photons, as well as their distribution and accurate analysis are of paramount importance, particularly with regard to the practicability of many applications of quantum communication. This thesis deals largely with the problem of efficient generation of photonic entanglement with the principal aim of developing a bright source of polarization-entangled photon pairs, which meets the requirements for reliable and economic operation of quantum communication prototypes and demonstrators. Our approach uses a correlated photon-pair emission in nonlinear process of spontaneous parametric down-conversion pumped by light coming from a compact and cheap blue laser diode. Two alternative source configurations are examined within the thesis. The first makes use of a well established concept of degenerate non-collinear emission from a single type-II nonlinear crystal and the second relies on a novel method where the emissions from two adjacent type-I phase-matched nonlinear crystals operated in collinear non-degenerate regime are coherently overlapped. The latter approach showed to be more effective, yielding a total detected rate of almost 10^6 pairs/s at >98 % quantum interference visibility of polarization correlations. This performance, together with the almost free of alignment operation of the system, suggest that it is an especially promising candidate for many future practical applications, including quantum cryptography, detector calibration or use in undergraduate lab courses. The second issue addressed within the thesis is the simplification and practical implementation of quantum-assisted solutions to multiparty communication tasks. While the recent rapid progress in the development of bright entangled photon-pair sources has been followed with ample experimental reports on two-party quantum communication tasks, the practical implementations of tasks for more than two parties have been held back, so far. This is mainly due to the requirement of multiparty entangled states, which are very difficult to be produced with current methods and moreover suffer from a high noise. We show that entanglement is not the only non-classical resource endowing the quantum multiparty information processing its power. Instead, only the sequential communication and transformation of a single qubit can be sufficient to accomplish certain tasks. This we prove for two distinct communication tasks, secret sharing and communication complexity. Whereas the goal of the first is to split a cryptographic key among several parties in a way that its reconstruction requires their collaboration, the latter aims at reducing the amount of communication during distributed computational tasks. Importantly, our qubit-assisted solutions to the problems are feasible with state-of-the-art technology. This we clearly demonstrate in the laboratory implementation for 6 and 5 parties, respectively, which is to the best of our knowledge the highest number of actively performing parties in a quantum protocol ever implemented. Thus, by successfully solving and implementing a cryptographic task as well as a task originating in computer science, we clearly illustrate the potential to introduce multiparty communication problems into real life.
Abstract We consider two classes of quantum generalisations of random access code (RAC) and study the bounds for probabilities of success for such tasks. It provides a useful framework for the study of certain information processing tasks with constrained resources. The first class is based on a RAC with quantum inputs and output known as the no-signalling quantum RAC (NS-QRAC) box (Grudka et al 2015 Phys. Rev. A 92 052312), where unbounded entanglement and constrained classical communication are allowed. We show that it can be seen as quantum teleportation with constrained classical communication and provide a lower quantum bound for the success probability. We consider two modifications to the NS-QRAC scenario: the first, where unbounded entanglement and constrained quantum communication is allowed and the second, where bounded entanglement and unconstrained classical communication is allowed. We find a monogamy relation for the transmission fidelities, which—in contrast to the usual communication schemes—involves multiple senders and a single receiver. We provide an upper bounds for the latter and a lower one for the former. The second class is based on a RAC with a quantum channel and shared entanglement (Tavakoli et al 2021 PRX Quantum 2 040357). We study the set of tasks where two inputs made of two digits of d-base are encoded over a qudit and a maximally entangled state. We show that such tasks can be seen as quantum dense-coding with constrained quantum communication and explicit protocols, which give lower quantum bounds for the tasks’ efficiency, in dimensions d = 2 , 3 , 4 . The employed encoding utilises Gray codes.
Abstract In a world where Quantum Networks are rapidly becoming a reality, the development of the Quantum Internet is gaining increasing interest. Nevertheless, modern quantum networks are still in the early stages of development and have limited capacity to distribute resources among different users – a constraint that needs to be taken into account. In this work, it aims to investigate these constraints, using a novel setup for implementing Quantum Random Access Codes (QRACs), communication protocols known for their quantum advantage over their classical counterparts and semi‐ device‐independent self‐testing applications. The QRAC states, made for the first time using weak coherent pulses instead of entangled single photons, allow us to experimentally test the encoding and decoding strategy from the resource allocation perspective. Moreover, by emulating a coexistent classical communication, it test the resilience of the implementation in presence of noise. The achieved results represent a significant milestone both for theoretical studies of quantum resource allocation and for the implementation of quantum infrastructures capable of coexisting with regular telecommunication networks.
$n\ensuremath{\rightarrow}m$ random access code (RAC) is an information task to encode an n-bit random message into a shorter m-bit string. Resulting from the compression loss from n to m bits, there exists success probabilities for the string receiver to recover any bits of the initial message. It has been shown that success probabilities of bit recovery can be enhanced by employing quantum resources. Here we present experimental realizations of $2\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1$ and $3\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1$ distributed entanglement-assisted random access codes (EARACs) with a two-photon entangled source. The average success probabilities obtained in our experiment are 0.8491(41) for a $2\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1$ EARAC and 0.7724(34) for a $3\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1$ EARAC, exceeding the classical counterparts, respectively. Moreover, through the existing experimental data, success probabilities for n varying from 4 to 10 (m=1) are estimated.
Abstract A random access code (RAC), corresponding to a communication primitive with various applications in quantum information theory, is an instance of a preparation-and-measurement scenario. In this work, we consider (n, d)-RACs constituting an n-length string, constructed from a d size set of letters, and send an encoding of the string in a single d-level physical system and present their quantum advantages. We first characterize optimal classical RACs and prove that a known classical strategy, called majority-encoding-identity-decoding, is optimal. We then construct a quantum protocol by exploiting only two incompatible measurements (the minimal requirement) and show the advantages beyond the classical one. We also discuss the generality of our results and whether quantum advantages are valid for all types of ( n , d ) ↦ 1 RACs.