This article discusses entanglement between two subsystems, one with discrete degrees of freedom and the other with continuous degrees of freedom. The overlap integral between continuous variable wave functions emerges as an important parameter to characterize this kind entanglement. ``Beam-like'' entanglement and ``shape-like'' entanglement are contrasted. One example of this kind of entanglement is between between the spin degrees of freedom and the momentum degrees of freedom for a non-relativistic particle. This intraparticle entanglement is Galilean invariant.
This article discusses entanglement between two subsystems, one with discrete degrees of freedom and the other with continuous degrees of freedom. The overlap integral between continuous variable wave functions emerges as an important parameter to characterize this kind entanglement. Beam-like'' entanglement and shape-like'' entanglement are contrasted. One example of this kind of entanglement is between between the spin degrees of freedom and the momentum degrees of freedom for a non-relativistic particle. This intraparticle entanglement is Galilean invariant.
This article discusses entanglement between two subsystems, one with discrete degrees of freedom and the other with continuous degrees of freedom. The overlap integral between continuous variable wave functions emerges as an important parameter to characterize this kind entanglement. ``Beam-like'' entanglement and ``shape-like'' entanglement are contrasted. One example of this kind of entanglement is between between the spin degrees of freedom and the momentum degrees of freedom for a non-relativistic particle. This intraparticle entanglement is Galilean invariant.
In discrete models, such as spin chains, the entanglement between a pair of particles in a chain has been shown to vanish beyond a certain separation. In the continuum, a quantum field ⊘(x) at a point represents a single degree of freedom, thus at a region of finite size there are infinite separate degrees of freedom. We show that as a consequence, in contrast to discrete models, the ground state of a free, quantized and relativistic field exhibits entanglement between any pair of arbitrarily separated finite regions. We also provide a lower bound on the decay rate of the entanglement as a function of the separation length between the regions and briefly discuss the physical reasons behind this different behaviour of discrete and continuous systems.
Quantum entanglement occurs not just in discrete systems such as spins, but also in the spatial wave functions of systems with more than one degree of freedom. It is easy to introduce students to entangled wave functions at an early stage, in any course that discusses wave functions. Doing so not only prepares students to learn about Bell's theorem and quantum information science, but can also provide a deeper understanding of the principles of quantum mechanics and help fight against some common misconceptions. Here I introduce several pictorial examples of entangled wave functions that depend on just two spatial variables. I also show how such wave functions can arise dynamically, and describe how to quantify their entanglement.
In this paper we explore the entanglement of two relativistic spin-1/2 particles with continuous momenta. The spin state is described by the Bell state and the momenta are given by Gaussian distributions of product and entangled form. Transformations of the spins are systematically investigated in different boost scenarios by calculating the orbits and concurrence of the spin degree of freedom. By visualizing the behavior of the spin state we get further insight into how and why the entanglement changes in different boost situations.
Entanglement is a key resource for fundamental tests of physics and emerging quantum technologies. In quantum optics, two perspectives on entanglement coexist. In the continuous-variable framework, entanglement is understood as holding between optical modes. In contrast, discrete-variable quantum optics focuses on quantum correlations in degrees of freedom such as polarization that label fixed numbers of photons. In this paper, we show that entanglement can transcend this separation. Spontaneous parametric down-conversion inherently generates correlations in optical phase space, photon number, and labelling degrees of freedom simultaneously. In polarization, this structure is traditionally described by macroscopic Bell states. Existing witnesses, however, fail to detect the genuine hybrid entanglement of these states, which goes beyond the continuous-discrete-variable categorization. Here, we lay the groundwork for a general framework unifying continuous- and discrete-variable notions of entanglement. In particular, we derive an operational witness providing a sufficient criterion for genuine hybrid number-polarization entanglement and outline its experimental implementation. Finally, we discuss exemplary states which, together with our results on macroscopic Bell states, motivate a broader classification of genuine hybrid quantum correlations.
Quantum information theory is a very young area of research offering a lot of challenging open questions to be tackled by ambitious upcoming physicists. One such problem is addressed in this thesis. Recently, several protocols have emerged which exploit both continuous variables and discrete variables. On the one hand, outperforming many of the established pure continuous variable or discrete variable schemes, these hybrid approaches offer new opportunities. However, on the other hand, they also lead to new, intricate, as yet uninvestigated, phenomena. An important ingredient of several of these hybrid protocols is a new kind of entanglement: The hybrid entanglement between continuous variable and discrete variable quantum systems, which is studied in detail in this work. An exhaustive analysis of this kind of entanglement is performed, where the focus is on bipartite entanglement. Nevertheless, also issues regarding multipartite hybrid entanglement are briefly discussed. The quintessence of this thesis is a new classification scheme which distinguishes between effective discrete variable hybrid entanglement and so-called true hybrid entanglement. However, along the way, also other questions are addressed, which have emerged during the studies. For example, entanglement witnessing is discussed not only for hybrid entangled states, but also for fully continuous variable two-mode Schroedinger cat states. Furthermore, subtleties regarding entanglement witnessing in a certain kind of mixed states are examined. Not only theoretical classification and analysis of hybrid entangled states are discussed, but also their generation is presented and a few applications are demonstrated.