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Scientific Reports

Representation theory of coherent photons and application to CNOT operation for spin and orbital angular momentum

Shinichi Saito

Published Nov 14, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Coherent photons have both spin and orbital angular momentum, and the superposition state among orthogonal states can describe a qubit. Here, we show the internal structure of coherent photons with spin and orbital angular momentum can be described by a representation theory of Lie algebra and Lie group. As an application of this theory, we have experimentally demonstrated the controlled-NOT (CNOT) operation, using a standard green laser diode. We have used beam splitters and waveplates to generate the macroscopic entangled light source with amplitudes and phases, controlled by rotating the waveplates. By applying the Bell projection to the entangled light, the far-field image of the light shows an expected dipole shape in the superposition state of left and right vortices, allowing to identify the state from the image. Then, we have used a polarisation dependent beam splitter to split the spin state, and we applied a NOT operation, made of a pair of cylindrical lenses, only for a vortex with a chosen polarisation, and recombined the beams after the operation. The proposed architecture could be used for a platform to manipulate qubits, made of macroscopically coherent photons.

DOI
10.1038/s41598-025-23755-9

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Results in Physics•May 9, 2024•1 citation
Coherent photons have both spin and orbital angular momentum, and the superposition state among orthogonal states can describe a qubit. Here, we show the internal structure of coherent photons with spin and orbital angular momentum can be described by a representation theory of Lie algebra and Lie group. As an application of this theory, we have experimentally demonstrated the controlled-NOT (CNOT) operation, using a standard green laser diode. We have used beam splitters and waveplates to generate the macroscopic entangled light source with amplitudes and phases, controlled by rotating the waveplates. By applying the Bell projection to the entangled light, the far-field image of the light shows an expected dipole shape in the superposition state of left and right vortices, allowing to identify the state from the image. Then, we have used a polarisation dependent beam splitter to split the spin state, and we applied a NOT operation, made of a pair of cylindrical lenses, only for a vortex with a chosen polarisation, and recombined the beams after the operation. The proposed architecture could be used for a platform to manipulate qubits, made of macroscopically coherent photons.
The coherent state from a laser source has spin and orbital degrees of freedom, which allow an arbitrary superposition state among orthogonal states with varying amplitudes and phases. Here, we theoretically show coherent photons with SU( N ) symmetry are characterised by expectation values of angular momentum shown on a hypersphere in SO( N 2 − 1 ) space. To demonstrate expected unitary transformations in experiments, we have constructed generators of transformations in the Lie group simply by combining widely available optical components such as waveplates and vortex lenses. We show a superposition state between twisted and Gaussian states is characterised by the dynamics of the topological charge upon the transformation in SU(3) states. We also realised photonic singlet and triplet states corresponding to SU(4) states, which were projected to SU(2)×SU(2) states upon passing through a rotated polariser.
It is well established now that light carries both spin and orbital angular momentum which are associated with circular polarisation and helical phase fronts. Orbital angular momentum degrees of freedom recently have been used frequently in quantum information processing as their states are described by vectors in a higher-dimensional Hilbert space which enhances the possibility of realising superior quantum information protocols. On the other hand, quantum coherence, which arises from the superposition principle, is a distinct feature of quantum mechanics that cannot be satisfactorily described by classical physics. Coherence is also identified as essential ingredient for applications of quantum information, computation, and quantum thermodynamics. Three research projects, with their related background information, are presented in this thesis. In the first one, we design a linear optical system to transform the maximally entangled state of a down-converted photon pair into a genuine entangled χ-type state, as this class of genuine entangled states has been showed to have many interesting entanglement properties and can be employed in several quantum information protocols. In the second project, we study the mechanism of angular momentum transfer from light to a dielectric medium when it undergoes total internal reflection. The result shows that the torque associated with angular momentum transfer appears shortly, when the light pulse hits the interface. Finally, we study quantum coherence transfer from a coherence resource initialised in a coherence state to an atomic state by the Jaynes-Cummings model, and we compare it to the coherent operation that uses a resource prepared in a ladder state described by Åberg’s model. We found that a resource in a coherent state is more robust against failures.
We propose a scheme for the generation of arbitrary coherent superpositions of vortex states in Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) using the orbital-angular-momentum states of light. We devise a scheme to generate coherent superpositions of two such counterrotating states of light using well-known experimental techniques. We show that a specially designed Raman scheme allows for transfer of the optical vortex-superposition state onto an initially nonrotating BEC. This creates an arbitrary and coherent superposition of a vortex and antivortex pair in the BEC. The ideas presented here could be extended to generate entangled vortex states, design memories for the orbital-angular-momentum states of light, and perform other quantum information tasks. Applications to inertial sensing are also discussed.
The angular momentum of light is a useful resource for many applications. In specific physical architectures it can be considered as the sum of two independent terms, the spin and the orbital components, in analogy to particle systems. The spin angular momentum is related to the polarization of the optical beam, that is the direction of the oscillating electric field, whereas the orbital angular momentum is associated with the spatial distribution of the field. Being independent, spin and orbital angular momenta have been discovered and explored in separate contexts for many years, while only recently it has been considered the possibility to address both quantities on the same beam (or individual photons). The interaction between these two quantities gives rise to complex structures of the electromagnetic field, or to the so called classical entanglement in the domain of single photons. The research presented in this work aimed to show that combining spin and orbital angular momenta in light beams or single photons may be a useful tool for a variety of applications, with particular interest to the case of architectures characterized by spin-orbit interaction. This concept was made concrete through the design and the realization of several experiments, in the framework of singular optics, foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum information theory and quantum simulation.
Abstract By employing the different topological charges of a Laguerre–Gaussian beam as a qubit, we experimentally demonstrate a controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate with light beams carrying orbital angular momentum via a photonic band gap structure in a hot atomic ensemble. Through a degenerate four-wave mixing process, the spatial distribution of the CNOT gate including splitting and spatial shift can be affected by the Kerr nonlinear effect in multilevel atomic systems. Moreover, the intensity variations of the CNOT gate can be controlled by the relative phase modulation. This research can be useful for applications in quantum information processing.
We show coherent photons with spin and orbital angular momentum have symmetry of special unitary group of degree four, SU(4), both theoretically and experimentally. We show the degree of polarisation could be a measure to characterise the quantum coherency of a spin state, which was significantly affected by the partial trace out of orbital degree of freedom. By changing the amplitudes of the classically entangled state, we observed a crossover from quantum Heisenberg spin to classical Ising spin. We also demonstrated projections of coherent states, which recover the coherency of the spin state, while the SU(4) state is projected to be a simple product state of SU(2)×SU(2). Based on the developed platform, we have explored spin texture of coherent photons, and found a unique spin profile reminiscent of the Bengal cat upon wrapping to a three-dimensional sphere. We have controlled the phase between singlet and triplet states and found the spin texture rotated upon increasing the phase.