The entangled coherent states (ECSs) have been widely used to realize quantum information processing tasks. However, the ECSs may suffer from photon loss and decoherence due to the inherent noise in quantum channel, which may degrade the fidelity of ECSs. To overcome these obstacles, we present a measurement-based entanglement purification protocol (MBEPP) for ECSs to distill some high-quality ECSs from a large number of low-quality copies. We first show the principle of this MBEPP without considering the photon loss. After that, we prove that this MBEPP is feasible to correct the error resulted from the photon loss. Additionally, this MBEPP only requires to operate the Bell state measurement without performing local two-qubit gates on the noisy pairs and the purified high-quality ECSs can be preserved for other applications. This MBEPP may have application potential in the implementation of long-distance quantum communication.
The entangled coherent states (ECSs) have been widely used to realize quantum information processing tasks. However, the ECSs may suffer from photon loss and decoherence due to the inherent noise in quantum channel, which may degrade the fidelity of ECSs. To overcome these obstacles, we present a measurement-based entanglement purification protocol (MBEPP) for ECSs to distill some high-quality ECSs from a large number of low-quality copies. We first show the principle of this MBEPP without considering the photon loss. After that, we prove that this MBEPP is feasible to correct the error resulted from the photon loss. Additionally, this MBEPP only requires to operate the Bell state measurement without performing local two-qubit gates on the noisy pairs and the purified high-quality ECSs can be preserved for other applications. This MBEPP may have application potential in the implementation of long-distance quantum communication.
Entanglement purification is the distilling of high-quality entanglement from low-quality entanglement and is a key element in the quantum repeater. As a new branch of entanglement purification, the measurement-based entanglement purification protocol (MBEPP) only requires one to perform the Bell state measurement to couple resource states with noisy pairs, and it tolerates more local noise than the conventional purification protocols. Existing MBEPPs usually focus on physical qubit entanglement. In this paper, we propose a measurement-based logical qubit entanglement purification protocol (MBLEPP) with quantum nondemolition detection (QND), where the qubit is encoded in the quantum parity code. The results show that this MBLEPP can also work with photon loss under the conditions that each block of the logical Bell state measurement contains at least one physical qubit, that at least one of the blocks is intact, and that the entanglement exists between all blocks. Moreover, we also consider the MBLEPP with imperfect QND. We show that below a certain QND error threshold, this MBLEPP can still work. In this way, this MBLEPP not only obtains high-fidelity entanglement but also tolerates photon loss and the error from imperfect QND. This MBLEPP combines the benefits of the MBEPP and quantum error correction code and may have potential application in long-distance quantum communication.
Measurement-based entanglement purification protocol (MBEPP) depending on the Bell state measurement (BSM) is first proposed in [Phys. Rev. Lett.110260503 (2013)10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.260503], which is shown to tolerate much more local noise than the conventional gate-based EPPs. However, the existing MBEPPs for discrete variable (MBEPP-DV) and MBEPP for continuous variable (MBEPP-CV) fail to take full advantage of their strengths. In this paper, we study the MBEPP for logical hybrid entanglement (MBEPP-LHE) in linear optics. We first demonstrate the principle of the MBEPP-LHE in the case that all logical BSMs (LBSMs) are perfect. Additionally, we consider that one of the components of the LBSM, i.e., the BSM for DVs or the BSM for CVs, fails on specific modes. The results indicate that the MBEPP-LHE can still work provided that at least one of the components of the LBSM is successful, which is the advantage of this purification compared to the previous MBEPPs. Moreover, the MBEPP-LHE can correct bit-flip and phase-flip errors not only on logical qubits but also on physical qubits. Furthermore, we show that the success probability of MBEPP-DV is the lower bound of that of MBEPP-LHE, while the success probability of the MBEPP-LHE has the same upper bound as MBEPP-CV. Finally, we also carry out the analysis of purifying the logical hybrid entanglement polluted by the dissipation error on coherent-state mode, and this error can be converted to bit-flip error on single-photon mode.
Abstract Hybrid entangled states (HESs), which involve different particles with various degrees of freedom, have garnered significant attention and been applied in a wide range of quantum technologies. However, similar to other categories of entanglement, maximally HESs inevitably degrade to mixed states due to the environmental noise and operational imperfections. To address the degradation problem, measurement-based entanglement purification offers a feasible and robust solution alternative to conventional gate-based purification methods. In this paper, we propose a measurement-based hybrid entanglement purification protocol (MB-HEPP) for a certain kind of HES which consists of polarization photons and coherent states. We extend our methodology to several conditions, such as the multi-copy and multi-party scenarios, and the photon-loss condition. Compared with previous HEPPs, this protocol has several advantages. First, it does not depend on post-selection and the purified HESs can be retained for further application. Second, it does not require the Bell state measurement, but only uses the parity check with conventional linear optical elements, which makes it have the higher success probability and more feasible. Our MB-HEPP has potential applications in future heterogeneous quantum networks.
Entanglement distillation, a fundamental building block of quantum networks, enables the purification of noisy entangled states shared among distant nodes by local operations and classical communication. Its practical realization presents several technical challenges, including the storage of quantum states in quantum memory and the execution of coherent quantum operations on multiple copies of states within the quantum memory. In this work, we present an entanglement purification protocol via quantum communication, namely a carrier-assisted entanglement purification protocol, which utilizes two elements only: i) quantum memory for a single-copy entangled state shared by parties and ii) single qubits travelling between parties. We show that the protocol, when single-qubit transmission is noiseless, can purify a noisy entangled state shared by parties. When single-qubit transmission is noisy, the purification relies on types of noisy qubit channels; we characterize Pauli channels such that the protocol works for the purification. We address this limitation by using multiple carrier qubits, and show that for any non-entanglement-breaking Pauli channel, the protocol's fixed-point fidelity approaches unity as the number of carriers increases. Our results significantly reduce the experimental overhead required for distilling entanglement: the practical advantage is demonstrated through parameters directly related to the capability of entanglement purification, such as noise in quantum memory, local measurements, channel use, and entanglement fidelity. We envisage that the protocol would make long-distance pure entanglement closer to a practical realization.
Entanglement purification is used to distill high quality entangled states from several noisy low quality entangled states, and it plays a key role in quantum repeater. The measurement-based entanglement purification protocol (MB-EPP) does not require local two-qubit gates or single-particle measurements on the noisy pairs and may offer significant advantages compared with the gate-based EPPs. We present an alternative MB-EPP in linear optics. Subsequently, we provide a detailed analysis on the realization of this MB-EPP using spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) sources. By delicately designing the optical circuits, the double-pair emission noise caused by SPDC sources can be eliminated automatically. Combined with suitable quantum memory and entanglement swapping, this MB-EPP may have application potential in the implementation of a practical measurement-based quantum repeater.
Entanglement purification is to distill high-quality entanglement from low-quality entanglement. Entanglement purification determines the efficiency and communication rates and plays a key role in quantum repeaters and long-distance quantum communications. Existing entanglement purification protocols and proof of principle experiments usually choose two identical input pairs. They are limited to focus on the successful purification case to obtain high-quality entangled states and discard the remained items if the purification fails. Recent entanglement purification theory [Opt. Express 28, 2291 (2020)OPEXFF1094-408710.1364/OE.383499] for arbitrary nonidentical input mixed states indicated that the discarded items may have residual entanglement and can be reused to increase the yield of entanglement purification, while the successful purification may not obtain a high-quality entangled state. In this Letter, using hyperentanglement, we design and experimentally demonstrate an entanglement purification protocol with nonidentical input mixed states. For the first time, we experimentally confirm the existence of residual entanglement in different error models. Furthermore, we illustrate that successful purification may decrease the fidelity of purified entangled states. We also demonstrate the approach of optimal entanglement purification. Our proof of principle results have potential applications in future high-efficiency and long-distance quantum communication.