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Entanglement of two-mode Schrödinger cats

D. B. Horoshko, Giuseppe Patera, Stephan De Bièvre, Mikhail I. Kolobov

Published May 21, 2018• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum superpositions of coherent states are produced both in microwave and optical domains, and are considered realizations of the famous “Schroedinger cat” state. The recent progress shows an increase in the number of components and the number of modes involved. Our work gives a theoretical treatment of multicomponent two-mode Schroedinger cat states. We consider a class of single-mode states, which are superpositions of N coherent states lying on a circle in the phase space. In this class we consider an orthonormal basis created by rotationally-invariant circular states (RICS). A two-mode extension of this basis is created by splitting a single-mode RICS on a balanced beam-splitter. After performing a symmetric (Loewdin) orthogonalization of the sets of coherent states in both modes we obtain the Schmidt decomposition of the two-mode state, and therefore an analytic expression for its entanglement. We show that the states obtained by splitting a RICS are generalizations of Bell states of two qubits to the case of N -level systems encoded into superpositions of coherent states on the circle, and we propose for them the name of generalized quasi-Bell states. We show that an exact probabilistic teleportation of arbitrary superposition of coherent states on the circle is possible with such a state used as shared resource.

DOI
10.1117/12.2307323

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Quantum superpositions of coherent states are produced both in microwave and optical domains, and are considered realizations of the famous “Schroedinger cat” state. The recent progress shows an increase in the number of components and the number of modes involved. Our work gives a theoretical treatment of multicomponent two-mode Schroedinger cat states. We consider a class of single-mode states, which are superpositions of N coherent states lying on a circle in the phase space. In this class we consider an orthonormal basis created by rotationally-invariant circular states (RICS). A two-mode extension of this basis is created by splitting a single-mode RICS on a balanced beam-splitter. After performing a symmetric (Loewdin) orthogonalization of the sets of coherent states in both modes we obtain the Schmidt decomposition of the two-mode state, and therefore an analytic expression for its entanglement. We show that the states obtained by splitting a RICS are generalizations of Bell states of two qubits to the case of N -level systems encoded into superpositions of coherent states on the circle, and we propose for them the name of generalized quasi-Bell states. We show that an exact probabilistic teleportation of arbitrary superposition of coherent states on the circle is possible with such a state used as shared resource.
We present a general approach to calculating the entanglement of formation for superpositions of two-mode coherent states, placed equidistantly on a circle in phase space. We show that in the particular case of rotationally invariant circular states the Schmidt decomposition of two modes, and therefore the value of their entanglement, are given by analytical expressions. We analyze the dependence of the entanglement on the radius of the circle and number of components in the superposition. We also show that the set of rotationally invariant circular states creates an orthonormal basis in the state space of the harmonic oscillator, and this basis is advantageous for representation of other circular states of light.
We motivate and introduce a class of “hierarchical” quantum superposition states of N coupled quantum oscillators. Unlike other well-known multimode photonic Schrödinger-cat states such as entangled coherent states, the hierarchical superposition states are characterized as two-branch superpositions of tensor products of single-mode Schrödinger-cat states. In addition to analyzing the photon statistics and quasiprobability distributions of prominent examples of these nonclassical states, we consider their usefulness for highprecision quantum metrology of nonlinear optical Hamiltonians and quantify their mode entanglement. We propose two methods for generating hierarchical superpositions in N = 2 coupled microwave cavities, exploiting currently existing quantum optical technology for generating entanglement between spatially separated electromagnetic field modes.
In recent years, there has been an increased interest in the generation of superposition of coherent states with opposite phases, the so-called photonic Schrodinger-cat states. These experiments are very challenging and so far, cats involving small photon numbers only have been implemented. Here, we propose to consider two-mode squeezed states as examples of a Schrodinger-cat-like state. In particular, we are interested in several criteria aiming to identify quantum states that are macroscopic superpositions in a more general sense. We show how these criteria can be extended to continuous variable entangled states. We apply them to various squeezed states, argue that two-mode squeezed vacuum states belong to a class of general Schrodinger-cat states and compare the size of states obtained in several experiments. Our results not only promote two-mode squeezed states for exploring quantum effects at the macroscopic level but also provide direct measures to evaluate their usefulness for quantum metrology.
When a superposition $(|\ensuremath{\alpha}〉\ensuremath{-}|\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\alpha}〉)$ of two coherent states with opposite phase falls upon a 50-50 beam splitter, the resulting state is entangled. Remarkably, the amount of entanglement is exactly 1 ebit, irrespective of \ensuremath{\alpha}, as was recently discovered by Hirota and Sasaki [LANL e-print quant-ph/0101018]. Here we discuss decoherence properties of such states and give a simple protocol that teleports one qubit encoded in Schr\"odinger cat states.
Schrödinger's cat originates from the famous thought experiment querying the counterintuitive quantum superposition of macroscopic objects. As a natural extension, several "cats" (quasi-classical objects) can be prepared into coherent quantum superposition states, which is known as multipartite cat states demonstrating quantum entanglement among macroscopically distinct objects. Here, we present a highly scalable approach to deterministically create flying multipartite Schrödinger's cat states by reflecting coherent-state photons from a microwave cavity containing a superconducting qubit. We perform full quantum state tomography on the cat states with up to four photonic modes and confirm the existence of quantum entanglement among them. We also witness the hybrid entanglement between discrete-variable states (the qubit) and continuous-variable states (the flying multipartite cat) through a joint quantum state tomography. Our work provides an enabling step for implementing a series of quantum metrology and quantum information processing protocols based on cat states.