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Experimental long-lived entanglement of two macroscopic objects

Brian Julsgaard, Alexander Kozhekin, Eugene S. Polzik

Published Jun 9, 2001• 693 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Abstract Entanglement is considered to be one of the most profound features of quantum mechanics1, 2. An entangled state of a system consisting of two subsystems cannot be described as a product of the quantum states of the two subsystems3, 4, 5, 6. In this sense, the entangled system is considered inseparable and non-local. It is generally believed that entanglement is usually manifest in systems consisting of a small number of microscopic particles. Here we demonstrate experimentally the entanglement of two macroscopic objects, each consisting of a caesium gas sample containing about 1012 atoms. Entanglement is generated via interaction of the samples with a pulse of light, which performs a non-local Bell measurement on the collective spins of the samples7. The entangled spin-state can be maintained for 0.5 milliseconds. Besides being of fundamental interest, we expect the robust and long-lived entanglement of material objects demonstrated here to be useful in quantum information processing, including teleportation8, 9, 10 of quantum states of matter and quantum memory.

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Abstract Entanglement is considered to be one of the most profound features of quantum mechanics1, 2. An entangled state of a system consisting of two subsystems cannot be described as a product of the quantum states of the two subsystems3, 4, 5, 6. In this sense, the entangled system is considered inseparable and non-local. It is generally believed that entanglement is usually manifest in systems consisting of a small number of microscopic particles. Here we demonstrate experimentally the entanglement of two macroscopic objects, each consisting of a caesium gas sample containing about 1012 atoms. Entanglement is generated via interaction of the samples with a pulse of light, which performs a non-local Bell measurement on the collective spins of the samples7. The entangled spin-state can be maintained for 0.5 milliseconds. Besides being of fundamental interest, we expect the robust and long-lived entanglement of material objects demonstrated here to be useful in quantum information processing, including teleportation8, 9, 10 of quantum states of matter and quantum memory.
Atomic ensembles containing a large number of atoms have been proved to be an effective medium for quantum-state (quantum information) engineering and processing via their coupling with multi-photon light pulses. The general mechanism of this coupling, which involves continuous quantum variables for light and atoms, is described. The efficient quantum interface between light and atoms has led to the recent demonstration of an entangled state of two macroscopic atomic objects, more precisely two caesium gas samples. Based on this result, a proposal for teleportation of an entangled state of two atomic samples (entanglement swapping) is presented.
Summary form only given. A new approach to the problem of the quantum interface between light and atoms has been recently developed. The method utilizes free space dispersive interaction between pulses of light and spin polarized atomic ensembles. Entanglement between the polarization state of light and the collective spin state of atoms is established by measurement, more precisely by detection of light in a certain polarization basis. In the first demonstration of this approach we have generated a long-lived entangled state of two separate macroscopic atomic samples by a polarization measurement on light transmitted through the samples. We then have shown that this approach also works for mapping of a quantum state of light onto long-lived atomic spin state paving the road towards realization of the quantum memory for light. Recently we have also extended the free space light-atoms interface beyond the continuous variables in the proposal, where a coherent superposition "cat" state of an atomic ensemble is generated by a measurement sequence. Progress with other communication protocols such as atomic state teleportation and multiparty networks will be presented.
One of the main ingredients in most quantum information protocols is a reliable source of two entangled systems. Such systems have been generated experimentally several years ago for light but has only in the past few years been demonstrated for atomic systems. None of these approaches however involve two atomic systems situated in separate environments. This is necessary for the creation of entanglement over arbitrary distances which is required for many quantum information protocols such as atomic teleportation. We present an experimental realization of such distant entanglement based on an adaptation of the entanglement of macroscopic gas samples containing about 10^11 cesium atoms shown previously by our group. The entanglement is generated via the off-resonant Kerr interaction between the atomic samples and a pulse of light. The achieved entanglement distance is 0.35m but can be scaled arbitrarily. The feasibility of an implementation of various quantum information protocols using macroscopic samples of atoms has therefore been greatly increased. We also present a theoretical modeling in terms of canonical position and momentum operators X and P describing the entanglement generation and verification in presence of decoherence mechanisms.
Entanglement is a striking feature of quantum mechanics and an essential ingredient in most applications in quantum information. Typically, coupling of a system to an environment inhibits entanglement, particularly in macroscopic systems. Here we report on an experiment, where dissipation continuously generates entanglement between two macroscopic objects. This is achieved by engineering the dissipation using laser- and magnetic fields, and leads to robust event-ready entanglement maintained for 0.04s at room temperature. Our system consists of two ensembles containing about 10^{12} atoms and separated by 0.5m coupled to the environment composed of the vacuum modes of the electromagnetic field. By combining the dissipative mechanism with a continuous measurement, steady state entanglement is continuously generated and observed for up to an hour.
Entanglement is a striking feature of quantum mechanics and an essential ingredient in most applications in quantum information. Typically, coupling of a system to an environment inhibits entanglement, particularly in macroscopic systems. Here we report on an experiment where dissipation continuously generates entanglement between two macroscopic objects. This is achieved by engineering the dissipation using laser and magnetic fields, and leads to robust event-ready entanglement maintained for 0.04 s at room temperature. Our system consists of two ensembles containing about 10(12) atoms and separated by 0.5 m coupled to the environment composed of the vacuum modes of the electromagnetic field. By combining the dissipative mechanism with a continuous measurement, steady state entanglement is continuously generated and observed for up to 1 h.
Entanglement between two macroscopic atomic ensembles induced by measurement on an ancillary light system has proven to be a powerful method for engineering quantum memories and quantum state transfer. Here we investigate the feasibility of such methods for generation, manipulation, and detection of genuine multipartite entanglement (Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger and clusterlike states) between mesoscopic atomic ensembles without the need of individual addressing of the samples. Our results extend in a nontrivial way the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen entanglement between two macroscopic gas samples reported experimentally in [B. Julsgaard, A. Kozhekin, and E. Polzik, Nature (London) 413, 400 (2001)]. We find that under realistic conditions, a second orthogonal light pulse interacting with the atomic samples, can modify and even reverse the entangling action of the first one leaving the samples in a separable state.