Size Does Not Always Matter

W. T. Geng

I conjecture that the nearsightedness of component electronic matter largely determines the size of a virus. These two length scales, one from physics and one from biochemistry, are in fact the same dimension which connects our quantum and everyday worlds. Learning how viruses interact with microscopic molecules and macroscopic biological cells might help us understand the quantum-to-classical transition in general cases of multiscale phenomena.

Samuel L. Braunstein

Bernice Kastner

Xue-Ping Zang, Ming Yang, Fatih Özaydin +2 more

W state is a key resource in quantum communication. Fusion technology has been proven to be a good candidate for preparing a large-size W state from two or more small-size W states in linear optical system. It is of great importance to study how to fuse W states via light-matter interface. Here we show that it is possible to prepare large-size W-state networks using a fusion mechanism in cavity QED system. The detuned interaction between three atoms and a vacuum cavity mode constitute the main fusion mechanism, based on which two or three small-size atomic W states can be fused into a larger-size W state. If no excitation is detected from those three atoms, the remaining atoms are still in the product of two or three new W states, which can be re-fused. The complicated Fredkin gate used in the previous fusion schemes is avoided here. W states of size 2 can be fused as well. The feasibility analysis shows that our fusion processes maybe implementable with the current technology. Our results demonstrate how the light-matter interaction based fusion mechanism can be realized, and may become the starting point for the fusion of multipartite entanglement in cavity QED system.

Xue-Ping Zang, Ming Yang, Fatih Özaydin +2 more

W state is a key resource in quantum communication. Fusion technology has been proven to be a good candidate for preparing a large-size W state from two or more small-size W states in linear optical system. It is of great importance to study how to fuse W states via light-matter interface. Here we show that it is possible to prepare large-size W-state networks using a fusion mechanism in cavity QED system. The detuned interaction between three atoms and a vacuum cavity mode constitute the main fusion mechanism, based on which two or three small-size atomic W states can be fused into a larger-size W state. If no excitation is detected from those three atoms, the remaining atoms are still in the product of two or three new W states, which can be re-fused. The complicated Fredkin gate used in the previous fusion schemes is avoided here. W states of size 2 can be fused as well. The feasibility analysis shows that our fusion processes maybe implementable with the current technology. Our results demonstrate how the light-matter interaction based fusion mechanism can be realized, and may become the starting point for the fusion of multipartite entanglement in cavity QED system.