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Quantum Communications and Quantum Imaging

Quantum state engineering by zero-photon subtraction (Conference Presentation)

Cory M. Nunn, S. U. Shringarpure, J. D. Franson, T. B. Pittman

Published Oct 3, 2022• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Single-photon subtraction (SPS) is useful for engineering optical quantum states and can be accomplished experimentally by heralding on the detection of one photon in the output port of a beamsplitter. Alternatively, conditioning on zero reflected photons modifies states by “zero-photon subtraction” (ZPS). Here we experimentally demonstrate that ZPS reduces the mean photon number of superpositions/mixtures of Fock states. The observed trends in attenuation show a dependence on the Mandel Q parameter for various input states, resulting in complementary behavior between SPS and ZPS. Theoretical results also show higher-order effects on the photon number distribution, beyond reduction in mean photon number.

DOI
10.1117/12.2632319

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Single-photon subtraction (SPS) is useful for engineering optical quantum states and can be accomplished experimentally by heralding on the detection of one photon in the output port of a beamsplitter. Alternatively, conditioning on zero reflected photons modifies states by “zero-photon subtraction” (ZPS). Here we experimentally demonstrate that ZPS reduces the mean photon number of superpositions/mixtures of Fock states. The observed trends in attenuation show a dependence on the Mandel Q parameter for various input states, resulting in complementary behavior between SPS and ZPS. Theoretical results also show higher-order effects on the photon number distribution, beyond reduction in mean photon number.
Quantum radar, also known as quantum illumination, is a type of quantum-sensing protocol for detecting noncooperative targets hidden in noisy environments. Recently, considerable research efforts have been focused on optimizing quantum illumination via conditional photon-detection methods, such as photon subtraction and photon catalysis of the entanglement source. However, to date, almost none of these studies have considered the probability of successful detection of nonzero photons. Often, the probability of conditional nonzero photon detection is extremely low, which may negate the advantage of conditional measurements in a quantum radar. In this paper, we propose enhancing the performance of quantum radars using zero-photon subtraction (ZPS), where no physical photons are subtracted from a given optical system. We demonstrate that the probability of ZPS is one or two orders of magnitude higher than that of nonzero photon detection. Our results show that ZPS helps enhance the performance of quantum radars, even when the probability of photon detection is considered. Moreover, in this paper, we consider a more realistic quantum radar in which target detection is performed using amplitude-damped quantum entanglement, which is more commonly used in the preparation of quantum entanglement in radar transmitters. This means that ZPS is a more efficient conditional photon-detection method for quantum illumination, providing a more robust scheme for developing future quantum radars.
The process of single-photon subtraction --essentially an implementation of the annihilation operator-- is known to be a useful tool for manipulating quantum optical states. Somewhat surprisingly, subtracting zero photons can also alter the properties of certain quantum states, and forms the bases of a noiseless attenuation process that is useful for quantum communication. Here we review our recent experimental work in this area, which uses parametric down-conversion sources and heralding signals based on the active detection of zero photons.
Engineering quantum states of light represents a crucial task in the vast majority of photonic quantum technology applications. Direct manipulation of the number of photons in the light signal, such as single-photon subtraction and addition, proved to be an efficient strategy for the task. Here we propose an adaptive multi-photon subtraction scheme where a particular subtraction task is conditioned by all previous subtraction events in order to maximize the probability of successful subtraction. We theoretically illustrate this technique on the model example of conversion of Fock states via photon subtraction. We also experimentally demonstrate the core building block of the proposal by implementing a feedforward-assisted conversion of two-photon state to a single-photon state. Our experiment combines two elementary photon subtraction blocks where the splitting ratio of the second subtraction beam splitter is affected by the measurement result from the first subtraction block in real time using an ultra-fast feedforward loop. The reported optimized photon subtraction scheme applies to a broad range of photonic states, including highly nonclassical Fock states and squeezed light, advancing the photonic quantum toolbox.