Measuring the Quantum State of Light

Rui Han, János A Bergou, Gerd Leuchs

We study the discrimination of weak coherent states of light with significant overlaps by nondestructive measurements on the light states through measuring atomic states that are entangled to the coherent states via dipole coupling. In this way, the problem of measuring and discriminating coherent light states is shifted to finding the appropriate atom–light interaction and atomic measurements. We show that this scheme allows us to attain a probability of error extremely close to the Helstrom bound, the ultimate quantum limit for discriminating binary quantum states, through the simple Jaynes–Cummings interaction between the field and ancilla with optimized light–atom coupling and projective measurements on the atomic states. Moreover, since the measurement is nondestructive on the light state, information that is not detected by one measurement can be extracted from the post-measurement light states through subsequent measurements.

Ulf Leonhardt, Henryk Paul

LeVally, Eric, McGee, Kevin, Andrew M. C. Dawes

Han, R., Bergou, J., Gerd Leuchs

We study the discrimination of weak coherent states of light with significant overlaps by nondestructive measurements on the light states through measuring atomic states that are entangled to the coherent states via dipole coupling. In this way, the problem of measuring and discriminating coherent light states is shifted to finding the appropriate atom–light interaction and atomic measurements. We show that this scheme allows us to attain a probability of error extremely close to the Helstrom bound, the ultimate quantum limit for discriminating binary quantum states, through the simple Jaynes–Cummings interaction between the field and ancilla with optimized light–atom coupling and projective measurements on the atomic states. Moreover, since the measurement is nondestructive on the light state, information that is not detected by one measurement can be extracted from the post-measurement light states through subsequent measurements.

Akira Furusawa

Shohei Imai

We show that projective measurements on quantum light can induce macroscopic cat states in many-electron systems driven by such light. Here we investigate the quantum dynamics of $N$ independent two-level electrons interacting with Schrödinger-cat or -kitten states of light. Without measurement, a macroscopic cat state of the electrons appears only in an ultrashort time window. In contrast, we demonstrate that photon-number parity or quadrature projective measurements can restore a macroscopic cat state in nonequilibrium electrons, even in the thermodynamic limit. These dynamics are captured by an external-field approximation, in which the electronic system evolves into a Rabi-oscillation cat state. Our results highlight the need for precise quantum measurement techniques for light to control macroscopic quantum states of matter driven by quantum light.