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Physical Review Applied

Magnon cat states induced by photon parametric coupling

Dawei Liu, Ying Wu, Liu-Gang Si

Published Apr 8, 2024• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Cat state, is not only interesting for testing the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, but also for wide applications ranging from fault-tolerant quantum computation to quantum metrology. Here, we propose a scheme to generate the magnon cat state by the indirect magnon nonlinearity. We show that the effective two-magnon loss process can be induced by the photon parametric coupling, steering the magnon into the cat-state manifold. In our work, the size of the magnon cat state can be easily adjusted, and the large-size cat state can be generated with high fidelity. At the same time, the speed of cat-state generation can be greatly improved by enhancing the photon-magnon interaction with maintaining a larger size of cat state. Further, we find that the effective two-magnon loss process can strongly suppress the decoherence of the environment under appropriate parameter conditions. The lifetime of the magnon cat state can be expected to be $t\ensuremath{\sim}3\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\text{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{s}$ under the current experimental techniques. This work provides a proposal for the preparation of nonclassical states of magnons without the direct magnon nonlinearity, which is meaningful for the development of quantum technology in the future.

DOI
10.1103/physrevapplied.21.044018

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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.
We propose an efficient method for dissipative generation of magnonic cat states in a cavity-magnon-qubit hybrid system by exploiting a two-magnon driving and dissipation mechanism. When both the magnon and qubit are driven, a coherent nonlinear two-magnon interaction is induced, wherein the qubit and the magnon mode exchange energy through magnon pairs. The dissipation of the qubit is exploited to steer the magnon mode into a quantum superposition of distinct coherent states, where the magnon mode evolves into either an even or odd cat state, depending on the parity of the magnon initial state. For the case where the magnon initial state is a superposition state, e.g., of $|0\ensuremath{\rangle}$ and $|1\ensuremath{\rangle}$, the magnon mode can evolve into a weighted mixture of the even and odd cat states. We also find that magnon squeezed states may emerge during the short-time evolution, showcasing the capability of our mechanism in preparing diverse magnon nonclassical states. Magnonic cat and squeezed states are macroscopic quantum states and have applications in macroscopic quantum studies and quantum sensing, e.g., in the dark-matter search using ferromagnetic axion haloscopes.
We propose a high-rate generation method of optical Schr\"odinger cat states. Thus far, photon subtraction from squeezed vacuum states has been a standard method in cat-state generation, but its constraints on experimental parameters limit the generation rate. In this paper, we consider the state generation by photon number measurement in one mode of two-mode Gaussian states, which is a generalization of conventional photon subtraction, and derive the conditions to generate high-fidelity and large-amplitude cat states. Our method relaxes the constraints on experimental parameters, allowing us to optimize them and attain a high generation rate. Supposing realistic experimental conditions, the generation rate of cat states with large amplitudes ($|\ensuremath{\alpha}|\ensuremath{\ge}2)$ can exceed megacounts per second, about 103{10}^{3}103 to 106{10}^{6}106 times better than typical rates of conventional photon subtraction. This rate would be improved further by the progress of related technologies. The ability to generate non-Gaussian states at a high rate is important in quantum computing using optical continuous variables, where scalability has been demonstrated but preparation of non-Gaussian states of light remains as a challenging task for universality and fault tolerance. Our proposal reduces the difficulty of the state preparation and opens a way for practical applications in quantum optics.
Abstract Generating and manipulating magnon quantum states for quantum information processing is a central topic in quantum magnonics. The conventional strategy amplifies the nonlinear interaction among magnons to manifest their quantum correlations at cryogenic temperatures, which is challenging for magnets with vanishingly small nonlinearities. Here we propose an unconventional approach to prepare entangled states of two distant magnon modes by applying a two-tone Floquet field to each magnet inside a microwave cavity. The Floquet driving can effectively generate parametric interaction between magnons and photons, and thus opens an indirect entanglement channel between the two magnon modes mediated by cavity photons. By optimizing the relative ratio of the magnon–photon coupling and the detuning between the magnon modes, the two magnon modes can reach a stationary and robust entanglement, of which the strength is enhanced compared with entanglement generated via magnetic nonlinearities. Furthermore, one-way steering between the two magnets is realized by engineering unequal damping rates of the two magnets while the steering asymmetry can be efficiently modulated by tuning the coupling strength of magnons and cavity photons. The essential physics of our findings universally applies to a wide class of magnets with small nonlinearities and may find promising applications in engineering robust magnon quantum states for quantum information science.
Abstract Cat states, as an important resource in the study of macroscopic quantum superposition and quantum information applications, have garnered widespread attention. To date, preparing large-sized optical cat states has remained challenging. We demonstrate that, by utilizing interaction-free measurement and the quantum Zeno effect, even a fragile quantum microscopic system can deterministically control and become entangled with strong light fields, thereby generating large-amplitude optical cat states. During the entire preparation process, our method ensures that the microscopic system functions within a weak field environment, so that its quantum property can be protected. Furthermore, we show that the preparation of cat states is possible even when the quantum microsystem suffers from significant photon loss, provided that optical losses from classical devices are kept low, which implies that the fidelity of the cat state can be enhanced by improvements to and the perfection of the classical optical system.
The cavity-magnon-qubit system has recently been demonstrated as a new platform for preparing macroscopic quantum states in magnonic systems. Here, we propose to prepare a two-mode magnonic cat state, which is also a non-Gaussian entangled state, based on this practical system involving two yttrium-iron-garnet (YIG) spheres and a superconducting qubit coupled to a common microwave cavity. By adiabatically eliminating the cavity and resonantly driving the qubit, an effective magnon-qubit conditional-displacement interaction is achieved. Further working in the magnon-magnon strong-coupling regime and considering two identical magnon frequencies and coupling strengths to the cavity, two hybridized magnon modes are formed, of which the bright mode is prepared in a cat state after a projective measurement on the qubit, while the dark mode remains in its initial vacuum state. Such a state corresponds to a two-mode cat state of two original magnon modes, which share strong non-Gaussian entanglement. We also discuss practical dissipation and dephasing effects on the cat state. The results indicate that strong nonclassicality and non-Gaussian entanglement are present in the two-mode cat state using fully feasible parameters.