Quantum entanglement, one of the defining features of quantum mechanics, has been demonstrated in a variety of nonlinear spinlike systems. Quantum entanglement in linear systems has proven significantly more challenging, as the intrinsic energy level degeneracy associated with linearity makes quantum control more difficult. Here we demonstrate the quantum entanglement of photon states in two independent linear microwave resonators, creating N-photon NOON states (entangled states |N0> + |0N>) as a benchmark demonstration. We use a superconducting quantum circuit that includes Josephson qubits to control and measure the two resonators, and we completely characterize the entangled states with bipartite Wigner tomography. These results demonstrate a significant advance in the quantum control of linear resonators in superconducting circuits.
Recent advances in fabricating superconducting circuits have allowed large numbers of microwave resonators and superconducting qubits to be employed in such circuits, but shared quantum entanglement among the photonics states of the resonators has not been attempted. Theorists now present a proposal that uses superconducting circuits to simulate a particular many-body quantum model that until now has been experimentally inaccessible and to create a type of shared quantum entanglement with the simulation.