Abstract The distiction between classical product states and quantum entangled states is disclosed with examples. Spontaneous parametric down conversion as a source of entangled photons is described. The action of a perfect beam splitter is analysed using creation and annihilation operators. The HOM interferometer is described. Its use in demonstrating the indistinguishability of photons and in measuring bandwidth of sources at the level of femtoseconds is recounted. Two particle entanglement is analysed using the Bloch sphere representation showing how the full knowledge of the entangled state does not fix the state of the individual particles. The four Bell states, eigenstates of two particle entanglement, are introduced. Teleportation of a photon state using entangled photons is described, and an experiment to entangle the quantum states of atoms at space-like separation outlined.
Abstract The distiction between classical product states and quantum entangled states is disclosed with examples. Spontaneous parametric down conversion as a source of entangled photons is described. The action of a perfect beam splitter is analysed using creation and annihilation operators. The HOM interferometer is described. Its use in demonstrating the indistinguishability of photons and in measuring bandwidth of sources at the level of femtoseconds is recounted. Two particle entanglement is analysed using the Bloch sphere representation showing how the full knowledge of the entangled state does not fix the state of the individual particles. The four Bell states, eigenstates of two particle entanglement, are introduced. Teleportation of a photon state using entangled photons is described, and an experiment to entangle the quantum states of atoms at space-like separation outlined.
Abstract The Mach–Zehnder interferometer experiment described earlier shows why and how quantum mechanics is different from classical mechanics. A photon sent through a beam splitter behaves like a particle when it is observed by only one of the two detectors. When two beam splitters are used, the photon “interferes with itself” and behaves like a wave. This is the so-called wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics which leads to quantum entanglement. This chapter discusses quantum superpositions when two or more particles are present. Understanding and analysing entanglement is one of the most interesting directions in the field of quantum information. First, a historical background of quantum entanglement is given, followed by a discussion on Bell's inequalities, separable states that do not violate Bell's inequalities, pure states that violate Bell's inequalities, mixed states that do not violate Bell's inequalities, and entanglement in second quantisation.
The present work starts with a historical and conceptual introduction of the foundation of the
entanglement, from the idea of Einstein to the formulation of Bohm, much more experimentally
accessible. For the formation of an entangled state, the description of the nonlinear physical process
SPDC (Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion) was given, starting from the classical
Hamiltonian and performing the quantization of the fields exiting the crystal. It was possible to
determine the general structure of the wave function by perturbing the vacuum state. The basic
properties of the density matrix and the qubit, the fundamental unit of quantum computation, have
also been recalled as a prerequisite to the measurements of Bell Inequality and Quantum
Tomography. The second chapter is focusing on the apparatus. This can be thought as divided into
two independent parts. The first, formed by the laser, the temporal precompensation system and the
non-linear crystal, is responsible for the production of entangled photons. The second, formed by
the spatial compensation system, the waveplates, and the beam splitter, can be described as an
operator, according to Jones's matrix calculation, which acts on the wavefunction produced by the
source. Measuring entanglement means detect coincidences, then we explain the dependence of the
counting rate from the apparatus and how we optimized the coincidence rate. Finally, in order to
verify the quantum character of the source, a Bell test was performed and the value of S is
extracted. The reconstruction of the density matrix is presented in the last chapter, using an
analytical analysis of the Bloch hypersphere, from which we found a starting point for a numerical
optimization of the density matrix that better represents our system.
In the last, we characterized the degree of entanglement of the source.
We present an overview of the method for generating entangled photon pairs via spontaneous parametric down conversion and the experimental method of detecting entangled states or Bell-states with the use of photon statistics, the two key systems required to realize quantum state teleportation and other related experiments. As a proof of the quantum nature of teleportation we performed an entanglement swapping experiment, where the teleported state itself was entangled. The experiment clearly showed that the entanglement survived the teleportation, as the quantum correlations of the teleported photon violated Bell's inequality.
One of the most surprising consequences of quantum mechanics is the entanglement of two or more distance particles. Even though there are still questions regarding the fundamental issues of quantum theory, quantum entanglement has started to play important roles in practical engineering applications such as quantum information processing, quantum metrology, quantum imaging and quantum lithography. Two-photon states have been the most popular entangled states in fundamental and applied research. Using spontaneous parametric down conversion as an example, this review introduces the concept of biphoton wavepacket and emphasizes the very different physics associated with the entangled two-photon system (pure state) and with the `individual' subsystems (statistical mixture). Experimental approaches for Bell state preparation, pumped by continous wave and ultrashort pulse are discussed.
Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference has become a central resource for quantum sensing and metrology owing to its sensitivity to temporal delay and photon indistinguishability. However, existing HOM-based sensing schemes generally rely on inserting a sample into one arm of the interferometer, making the measurement vulnerable to optical loss, alignment instability, and bandwidth-dependent distortion of the interference profile. Here, we demonstrate a symmetry-controlled quantum sensing scheme based on continuous transitions between symmetric (bosonic-like) and antisymmetric (fermionic-like) Bell states in two-photon interference. By imprinting a geometric phase onto the classical pump beam and transferring it to polarization-entangled photons generated via spontaneous parametric down-conversion, we coherently tune the exchange symmetry of the entangled state without altering the temporal or spectral indistinguishability of the photons. The HOM response evolves continuously from bunching to antibunching with a sine square phase dependence, producing a coincidence modulation of approximately 10 * 10^4 counts s^-1 counts/s. In contrast to conventional HOM sensing, the phase-modulation linewidth remains fixed at pi/2, independent of photon bandwidth. Using a birefringent crystal placed directly in the pump beam, we measure thermo-dispersive birefringence with a resolution of the order of 10^{-6} over a broad temperature range. Our results establish exchange symmetry as a controllable resource for robust quantum sensing and symmetry-engineered photonic quantum information processing.
Summary form only given. Entanglement is one of the most striking features of quantum mechanics and was a source of many debates among the early founders of this theory. More recently, entanglement was considered as one of the key points in the field of quantum information processing. Those potential applications require however the deterministic production of entanglement implying a large number of subsystems. Spontaneous phenomena, generally used to entangle 2 systems, are therefore not easily extendable towards those requirements. Recent works have succeeded in producing entangled state of three or more particles by using spontaneous parametric down-conversion or a unitary operation on a ensemble of trapped ions. We have created an entangled state between two atoms and a mode of the electromagnetic field stored in a cavity. The particles are separated by centimetric distances, which allows for individual addressing. The entangled state is prepared by unitary reversible operations acting on one or two of the particles at the same time. The analysis of the state is performed by detecting correlations between individual observables.