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Minimum optical depth multi-port interferometers for approximating any unitary transformation and any pure state.

Luciano Pereira, Alejandro Jose Rojas, Gustavo Cañas, G. Lima, A. Delgado, Adán Cabello

Published Feb 4, 2020• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Reconfigurable devices capable to implement any unitary operation with a given fidelity are crucial for photonic universal quantum computation, optical neural networks, and boson sampling. Here, we address the problems of approximating with a given infidelity any unitary operation and any pure state using multi-port interferometers, which are of current interest due to the recent availability of multi-core fiber integrated multi-port interferometers. We show that any pure state, in any dimension $d$, can be prepared with infidelity $\le 10^{-15}$ with $3$~layers of $d$-dimensional Fourier transforms and $3$~layers of configurable phase shifters. In contrast, the schemes in [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{73}, 58 (1994) and Optica \textbf{3}, 1460 (2016)], require optical depth $2(d-1)$. We also present numerical evidence that $d+1$~layers of $d$-dimensional Fourier transforms and $d+2$~layers of configurable phase shifters can produce any unitary with infidelity $\le 10^{-14}$, while the scheme in [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{124}, 010501 (2020)] only achieves an infidelity in the order of $10^{-7}$ for block-diagonal unitary transformations

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Reconfigurable devices capable to implement any unitary operation with a given fidelity are crucial for photonic universal quantum computation, optical neural networks, and boson sampling. Here, we address the problems of approximating with a given infidelity any unitary operation and any pure state using multi-port interferometers, which are of current interest due to the recent availability of multi-core fiber integrated multi-port interferometers. We show that any pure state, in any dimension ddd, can be prepared with infidelity ≤10−15\le 10^{-15}≤10−15 with 333~layers of ddd-dimensional Fourier transforms and 333~layers of configurable phase shifters. In contrast, the schemes in [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{73}, 58 (1994) and Optica \textbf{3}, 1460 (2016)], require optical depth 2(d−1)2(d-1)2(d−1). We also present numerical evidence that d+1d+1d+1~layers of ddd-dimensional Fourier transforms and d+2d+2d+2~layers of configurable phase shifters can produce any unitary with infidelity ≤10−14\le 10^{-14}≤10−14, while the scheme in [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{124}, 010501 (2020)] only achieves an infidelity in the order of 10−710^{-7}10−7 for block-diagonal unitary transformations
Reconfigurable devices which can implement arbitrary unitary operations are crucial for photonic quantum computation, optical neural networks, and boson sampling. Here, we address the problem of, using multiport interferometers, approximating with a given infidelity any pure-state preparation and any unitary operation. By means of numerical calculations, we show that pure states, in any dimension ddd, can be prepared with infidelity $\ensuremath{\le}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}15}$ with three layers of ddd-dimensional Fourier transforms and three layers of configurable phase shifters. We also present numerical evidence that d+1d+1d+1 layers of ddd-dimensional Fourier transforms and d+2d+2d+2 layers of configurable phase shifters can produce any unitary operation with infidelity $\ensuremath{\le}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}14}$. The conclusions are achieved by numerical simulations in the range from d=3d=3d=3 to d=10d=10d=10. These results are interesting in light of the recent availability of multicore fiber-integrated multiport interferometers.
Universal multi-port interferometers that can be reconfigured to implement any unitary operation are crucial for photonic universal quantum computation, optical neural networks, and boson sampling. Recently, Saygin et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 010501 (2020)] have presented numerical evidence that an extremely compact arrangement consisting in ddd layers of ddd-dimensional Fourier transforms and d+1d+1d+1 layers of configurable phase shifters might be universal in any dimension ddd. Here, we first present counterexamples to this statement. We show that for d=3d=3d=3 and 444, around 5% of the unitary matrices from a Haar-uniform distribution cannot be recovered with high fidelity using Saygin et al.'s scheme. We also identify a family of unitary matrices with elements that cannot be recovered with high fidelity for any 5≤d≤105\leq d \leq 105≤d≤10. Secondly, we present numerical evidence that universality is recovered in all dimensions by adding a Fourier transformation and a layer of phase shifters, which preserves the compactness of the scheme and its robustness against imperfections.
A large number of applications in classical and quantum photonics require the capability of implementing arbitrary linear unitary transformations on a set of optical modes. In a seminal work by Reck et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett.73, 58 (1994)10.1103/PhysRevLett.73.58], it was shown how to build such multiport universal interferometers with a mesh of beam splitters and phase shifters, and this design became the basis for most experimental implementations in the last decades. However, the design of Reck et al. is difficult to scale up to a large number of modes, which would be required for many applications. Here we present a deterministic algorithm that can find an exact and efficient implementation of any unitary transformation, using only Fourier transforms and phase masks. Since Fourier transforms and phase masks are routinely implemented in several optical setups and they do not suffer from some of the scalability issues associated with building extensive meshes of beam splitters, we believe that our design can be useful for many applications in photonics.
Integrated multi-port interferometers are the second step in programmable photonics. Initially conceived and designed to implement fixed linear optics unitary transformations between N input and N output ports to support mode transformations in quantum optics, the rapid development of this field and the possibility of applying these structures to other areas stimulated development of devices capable of supporting arbitrary linear transformations by suitable programming and surpassing use in square matrix transformations and unitary operators. This chapter reviews some basic concepts on unitary N×N matrices and then describes in detail the basic design principles and integrated optics implementations of triangular and rectangular designs for multi-port interferometers. It then considers more specific interferometer designs, which do not provide possible implementation of general linear transformations but are optimised for performing important operations, e.g. the Fourier transform. Lastly, it covers the linear universal component, which integrates both universal beam couplers and integrated multi-port interferometers.
Multiport interferometers with NNN ports are basic devices in both classical and quantum photonics. Ideally, they implement a linear unitary transformation between the input and output electric field vectors with NNN components, each associated with a spatial mode of classical coherent light or a single photon. Standard designs for a fully reconfigurable universal multiport interferometer are given by the Reck or the Clements schemes. In this work, we introduce routing schemes to implement a generic unitary transformation on classical coherent light or single photons using linear or tree geometries via multiple projective measurements on a single detector with the minimum number of components. Then, we generalize this result to the case of any multi-photon state for scattershot boson sampling experiments with multi-routing schemes. Finally, we test the robustness of routing schemes compared to universal schemes with respect to losses and phase noise.
Universal multiport interferometers, which can be programmed to implement any linear transformation between multiple channels, are emerging as a powerful tool for both classical and quantum photonics. These interferometers are typically composed of a regular mesh of beam splitters and phase shifters, allowing for straightforward fabrication using integrated photonic architectures and ready scalability. The current, standard design for universal multiport interferometers is based on work by Reck et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett.73, 58 (1994)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.73.58]. We demonstrate a new design for universal multiport interferometers based on an alternative arrangement of beam splitters and phase shifters, which outperforms that by Reck et al. Our design requires half the optical depth of the Reck design and is significantly more robust to optical losses.