Quantum Tomography of Nonclassical Light

Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano, Lorenzo Maccone

Alfredo Luis, Laura Ares

Any nonclassical effect noticed in measured statistics is usually attributed just to the light state being observed. According to Born's rule, quantum probabilities are given by the overlap between the system state and measurement states in a quite symmetrical way. We demonstrate that the nonclassicality of the measurement is a necessary condition to obtain nonclassical statistics. To this end, we present a detector characterization for two-observable joint detection processes based on detector tomography. This is particularized to the most common signatures of nonclassical light.

Baris I. Erkmen, Jeffrey H. Shapiro

Quantum optical coherence tomography (Q-OCT) offers a factor-of-2 improvement in axial resolution and the advantage of even-order dispersion cancellation when it is compared to conventional OCT (C-OCT). These features have been ascribed to the nonclassical nature of the biphoton state employed in the former, as opposed to the classical state used in the latter. Phase-conjugate OCT (PC-OCT) shows that nonclassical light is not necessary to reap Q-OCT's advantages. PC-OCT uses classical-state signal and reference beams, which have a phase-sensitive cross correlation, together with phase conjugation to achieve the axial resolution and even-order dispersion cancellation of Q-OCT with a signal-to-noise ratio that can be comparable to that of C-OCT.

Zavatta A., Valentina Parigi, Bellini M.

Georg Harder, Christine Silberhorn, Jaroslav Řeháček +4 more

We report the experimental reconstruction of the statistical properties of an ultrafast pulsed type II parametric down-conversion source in a periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate waveguide at telecom wavelengths, with almost perfect photon-number correlations. We use a photon-number-resolving time-multiplexed detector based on a fiber-optical setup and a pair of avalanche photodiodes. By resorting to a germane data-pattern tomography, we assess the properties of the nonclassical light states with unprecedented precision.

V. P. Karassiov