Non-Gaussian manipulation of entanglement and arbitrarily large Schrödinger cats

Shengjun Wu

Roman Goncharov, N. G. Veselkova, Alexei D. Kiselev

Squeezed optical Schrödinger cat states constitute a key resource for both fundamental tests of quantum theory and up-to-date quantum technologies. We propose a measurement-assisted gate for the generation and manipulation of the cat states. In this scheme, an ancilla in the non-Gaussian small-amplitude (in general, squeezed) Schrödinger cat state and the target oscillator initially prepared in a squeezed vacuum (or coherent) state are subjected to a quantum nondemolition (QND) entangling operation followed by projective homodyne measurement. The proposed gate enables generation of high-fidelity squeezed Schrödinger cat states with controllable size and squeezing with tunable fidelity/success-probability trade-off. We also introduce an iterative, homodyne-conditioned $C_Z$-based protocol for cat-state amplification. The parameter regimes required to achieve the desired fidelity and the success probability are analyzed. The approach is well suited for applications in measurement-based quantum computing and hybrid quantum networks where non-Gaussian resources enhance computational and communication capabilities.

Feng-Xiao Sun, Shasha Zheng, Yang Xiao +3 more

The magnon cat state represents a macroscopic quantum superposition of collective magnetic excitations of large number spins that not only provides fundamental tests of macroscopic quantum effects but also finds applications in quantum metrology and quantum computation. In particular, remote generation and manipulation of Schrödinger cat states are particularly interesting for the development of long-distance and large-scale quantum information processing. Here, we propose an approach to remotely prepare magnon even or odd cat states by performing local non-Gaussian operations on the optical mode that is entangled with the magnon mode through pulsed optomagnonic interaction. By evaluating key properties of the resulting cat states, we show that for experimentally feasible parameters, they are generated with both high fidelity and nonclassicality, as well as with a size large enough to be useful for quantum technologies. Furthermore, the effects of experimental imperfections such as the error of projective measurements and dark count when performing single-photon operations have been discussed, where the lifetime of the created magnon cat states is expected to be t∼1 μs.

Guillaume Aubrun

Dik Bouwmeester

Mattia L. Palma, Jimmy Stammers, Marco G. Genoni +4 more

Highly quantum nonlinear interactions between different bosonic modes lead to the generation of quantum non-Gaussian states, i.e. states that cannot be written as mixtures of Gaussian states. A paradigmatic example is given by Schrödinger's cat states, that is, coherent superpositions of coherent states with opposite amplitude. We here consider a novel quantum non-Gaussianity criterion recently proposed in the literature and prove its effectiveness on Schrödinger cat states evolving in a lossy bosonic channel. We prove that the quantum non-Gaussianity can be effectively detected for high values of losses and for large coherent amplitudes of the cat states.