The quantum steering task’s asymmetry makes it interesting and useful. We experimentally explore detection-loophole-free steering with and without heralding. We perform a conclusive demonstration of one-way steering, where otherwise-successful steering fails on exchange of parties.
Quantum nonlocality and its asymmetric counterpart, quantum steering, are among the most intriguing manifestations of quantum mechanics. From a theoretical perspective, they are not only of fundamental significance but also hold promise for a wide range of applications. However, the stringent technological requirements for their experimental observation in a loophole-free way have largely restricted their realization to foundational demonstrations. A major challenge in these setups is the limited detection efficiency of current detectors as to observe nonlocality or steering in the standard scenarios, one requires detectors above a certain critical efficiency which can only be achieved with superconducting detectors. Considering the simplest quantum network, we demonstrate here that quantum steering between two parties, can be demonstrated for any non-zero detection efficiency, if the sources in the network generate states above a critical visibility well-within the current practical limits. This form of quantum steering in networks, is termed swap-steering. Moreover, when the sources are perfect, swap-steering can be observed using any entangled measurement on the untrusted side, even with arbitrarily low detection efficiency. Consequently, two major loopholes, the detection-loophole as well as free-will loophole can be closed easily in quantum steering experiments, when implemented using networks.
Quantum steering allows two parties to verify shared entanglement even if one measurement device is untrusted. A conclusive demonstration of steering through the violation of a steering inequality is of considerable fundamental interest and opens up applications in quantum communication. To date, all experimental tests with single-photon states have relied on post selection, allowing untrusted devices to cheat by hiding unfavourable events in losses. Here we close this 'detection loophole' by combining a highly efficient source of entangled photon pairs with superconducting transition-edge sensors. We achieve an unprecedented ~62% conditional detection efficiency of entangled photons and violate a steering inequality with the minimal number of measurement settings by 48 s.d.s. our results provide a clear path to practical applications of steering and to a photonic loophole-free Bell test.
Abstract Violating a nonlocality inequality enables the most powerful remote quantum information tasks and fundamental tests of quantum physics. Loophole-free photonic verification of nonlocality has been achieved with polarization-entangled photon pairs, but not with states entangled in other degrees of freedom. Here we demonstrate completion of the quantum steering nonlocality task, with the detection loophole closed, when entanglement is distributed by transmitting a photon in an optical vector vortex state, formed by optical orbital angular momentum (OAM) and polarization. As well as opening up a high-efficiency encoding beyond polarization, the critically important demonstration of vector vortex steering opens the door to new free-space and satellite-based secure quantum communication devices and device-independent protocols.
The distribution and verification of quantum nonlocality across a network of users is essential for future quantum information science and technology applications. However, beyond simple point-to-point protocols, existing methods struggle with increasingly complex state preparation for a growing number of parties. Here, we experimentally demonstrate multiparty detection-loophole-free quantum steering, where one party simultaneously steers multiple spatially separate parties, using a multi-qubit state produced from a set of qubits of which only one pair is entangled. We derive loss-tolerant steering inequalities, enabling our experiment to close the detection loophole, and enabling us to show the scalability of this approach to rigorously verify quantum nonlocality across arbitrarily many parties. This provides practical tools for developing the future quantum internet.
Loophole-free quantum nonlocality often demands experiments with high complexity (defined by all parties' settings and outcomes) and multiple efficient detectors. Here, we identify the fundamental efficiency and complexity thresholds for quantum steering using two-qubit entangled states. Remarkably, it requires only one photon detector on the untrusted side, with efficiency ε>1/X, where X≥2 is the number of settings on that side. This threshold applies to all pure entangled states, in contrast to analogous Bell-nonlocality tests, which require almost unentangled states to be loss-tolerant. We confirm these predictions in a minimal-complexity (X=2 for the untrusted party and a single three-outcome measurement for the trusted party), detection-loophole-free photonic experiment with $ε= (51.6 \pm 0.4)\% $.