Optical channels, such as fibers or free-space links, are ubiquitous in todays telecommunication networks. They rely on the electromagnetic field associated with photons to carry information from one point to another in space. As a result, a complete physical model of these channels must necessarily take quantum effects into account in order to determine their ultimate performances. Specifically, Gaussian photonic (or bosonic) quantum channels have been extensively studied over the past decades given their importance for practical purposes. In spite of this, a longstanding conjecture on the optimality of Gaussian encodings has yet prevented finding their communication capacity. Here, this conjecture is solved by proving that the vacuum state achieves the minimum output entropy of a generic Gaussian bosonic channel. This establishes the ultimate achievable bit rate under an energy constraint, as well as the long awaited proof that the single-letter classical capacity of these channels is additive. Beyond capacities, it also has broad consequences in quantum information sciences.
We prove that a beam splitter, one of the most common optical components, fulfills several classes of majorization relations, which govern the amount of quantum entanglement that it can generate. First, we show that the state resulting from k photons impinging on a beam splitter majorizes the corresponding state with any larger photon number k>k, implying that the entanglement monotonically grows with k. Then, we examine parametric infinitesimal majorization relations as a function of the beam-splitter transmittance, and find that there exists a parameter region where majorization is again fulfilled, implying a monotonic increase of entanglement by moving towards a balanced beam splitter. We also identify regions with a majorization default, where the output states become incomparable. In this latter situation, we find examples where catalysis may nevertheless be used in order to recover majorization. The catalyst states can be as simple as a path-entangled single-photon state or a two-mode vacuum squeezed state.
A non trace-preserving map describing a probabilistic but heralded noiseless linear amplifier has recently been proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Here, we exhibit another remarkable feature of this peculiar transformation, namely its ability to serve as a universal single-mode squeezer regardless of the quadrature that is initially squeezed. Hence, it acts as an heralded phase-insensitive optical squeezer, conserving the signal-to-noise ratio just as a phase-sensitive optical amplifier but for all quadratures at the same time, which may offer new perspectives in quantum optical communications. Although this ability to squeeze all quadratures seemingly opens a way to instantaneous signaling by circumventing the quantum no-cloning theorem, we explain the subtle mechanism by which the probability for such a causality violation vanishes, even on an heralded basis.
We re-derive the Schr{o}dinger-Robertson uncertainty principle for the position and momentum of a quantum particle. Our derivation does not directly employ commutation relations, but works by reduction to an eigenvalue problem related to the harmonic oscillator, which can then be further exploited to find a larger class of constrained uncertainty relations. We derive an uncertainty relation under the constraint of a fixed degree of Gaussianity and prove that, remarkably, it is saturated by all eigenstates of the harmonic oscillator. This goes beyond the common knowledge that the (Gaussian) ground state of the harmonic oscillator saturates the uncertainty relation.
Quantum bit commitment has long been known to be impossible. Nevertheless, just as in the classical case, imposing certain constraints on the power of the parties may enable the construction of asymptotically secure protocols. Here, we introduce a quantum bit commitment protocol and prove that it is asymptotically secure if cheating is restricted to Gaussian operations. This protocol exploits continuous-variable quantum optical carriers, for which such a Gaussian constraint is experimentally relevant as the high optical nonlinearity needed to effect deterministic non-Gaussian cheating is inaccessible.
We present a simple model together with its physical implementation which allows one to generate multipartite entanglement between several spatial modes of the electromagnetic field. It is based on parametric down-conversion with N pairs of symmetrically-tilted plane waves serving as a pump. The characteristics of this spatial entanglement are investigated in the cases of zero as well as nonzero phase mismatch. Furthermore, the phenomenon of entanglement localization in just two spatial modes is studied in detail and results in an enhancement of the entanglement by a factor square root of N.
Most investigations of multipartite entanglement have been concerned with temporal modes of the electromagnetic field, and have neglected its spatial structure. We present a simple model which allows to generate tripartite entanglement between spatial modes by parametric down-conversion with two symmetrically-tilted plane waves serving as a pump. The characteristics of this entanglement are investigated. We also discuss the generalization of our scheme to 2N+1-partite entanglement using 2N symmetrically-tilted plane pump waves. Another interesting feature is the possibility of entanglement localization in just two spatial modes.
Bounded uncertainty relations provide the minimum value of the uncertainty assuming some additional information on the state. We derive analytically an uncertainty relation bounded by a pair of constraints, those of purity and Gaussianity. In a limiting case this uncertainty relation reproduces the purity-bounded derived by V I Manko and V V Dodonov and the Gaussianity-bounded one [Phys. Rev. A 86, 030102R (2012)].
According to Hudsons theorem, any pure quantum state with a positive Wigner function is necessarily a Gaussian state. Here, we make a step towards the extension of this theorem to mixed quantum states by finding upper and lower bounds on the degree of non-Gaussianity of states with positive Wigner functions. The bounds are expressed in the form of parametric functions relating the degree of non-Gaussianity of a state, its purity, and the purity of the Gaussian state characterized by the same covariance matrix. Although our bounds are not tight, they permit us to visualize the set of states with positive Wigner functions.
The entanglement content of superpositions of quantum states is investigated based on a measure called {it concurrence}. Given a bipartite pure state in arbitrary dimension written as the quantum superposition of two other such states, we find simple inequalities relating the concurrence of the state to that of its components. We derive an exact expression for the concurrence when the component states are biorthogonal, and provide elegant upper and lower bounds in all other cases. For quantum bits, our upper bound is tighter than the previously derived bound in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 100502 (2006).]
