No Arabic abstract
Multipartite entangled states are a fundamental resource for a wide range of quantum information processing tasks. In particular, in quantum networks it is essential for the parties involved to be able to verify if entanglement is present before they carry out a given distributed task. Here we design and experimentally demonstrate a protocol that allows any party in a network to check if a source is distributing a genuinely multipartite entangled state, even in the presence of untrusted parties. The protocol remains secure against dishonest behaviour of the source and other parties, including the use of system imperfections to their advantage. We demonstrate the verification protocol in a three- and four-party setting using polarization-entangled photons, highlighting its potential for realistic photonic quantum communication and networking applications.
The future of quantum communication relies on quantum networks composed by observers sharing multipartite quantum states. The certification of multipartite entanglement will be crucial to the usefulness of these networks. In many real situations it is natural to assume that some observers are more trusted than others in the sense that they have more knowledge of their measurement apparatuses. Here we propose a general method to certify all kinds of multipartite entanglement in this asymmetric scenario and experimentally demonstrate it in an optical experiment. Our results, which can be seen as a definition of genuine multipartite quantum steering, give a method to detect entanglement in a scenario in between the standard entanglement and fully device-independent scenarios, and provide a basis for semi-device-independent cryptographic applications in quantum networks.
Distribution and distillation of entanglement over quantum networks is a basic task for Quantum Internet applications. A fundamental question is then to determine the ultimate performance of entanglement distribution over a given network. Although this question has been extensively explored for bipartite entanglement-distribution scenarios, less is known about multipartite entanglement distribution. Here we establish the fundamental limit of distributing multipartite entanglement, in the form of GHZ states, over a quantum network. In particular, we determine the multipartite entanglement distribution capacity of a quantum network, in which the nodes are connected through lossy bosonic quantum channels. This setting corresponds to a practical quantum network consisting of optical links. The result is also applicable to the distribution of multipartite secret key, known as common key, for both a fully quantum network and trusted-node based quantum key distribution network. Our results set a general benchmark for designing a network topology and network quantum repeaters (or key relay in trusted nodes) to realize efficient GHZ state/common key distribution in both fully quantum and trusted-node-based networks. We show an example of how to overcome this limit by introducing a network quantum repeater. Our result follows from an upper bound on distillable GHZ entanglement introduced here, called the recursive-cut-and-merge bound, which constitutes major progress on a longstanding fundamental problem in multipartite entanglement theory. This bound allows for determining the distillable GHZ entanglement for a class of states consisting of products of bipartite pure states.
Quantum entanglement is a quantum mechanical phenomenon where the quantum state of a many-body system with many degrees of freedom cannot be described independently of the state of each body with a given degree of freedom, no matter how far apart in space each body is. Entanglement is not only considered a resource in quantum information but also believed to affect complex condensed matter systems. Detecting and quantifying multi-particle entanglement in a many-body system is thus of fundamental significance for both quantum information science and condensed matter physics. Here, we detect and quantify multipartite entanglement in a spin 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain in a bulk solid. Multipartite entanglement was detected using quantum Fisher information which was obtained using dynamic susceptibility measured via inelastic neutron scattering. The scaling behaviour of quantum Fisher information was found to identify the spin 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain to belong to a class of strongly entangled quantum phase transitions with divergent multipartite entanglement.
A core process in many quantum tasks is the generation of entanglement. It is being actively studied in a variety of physical settings - from simple bipartite systems to complex multipartite systems. In this work we experimentally study the generation of bipartite entanglement in a nanophotonic system. Entanglement is generated via the quantum interference of two surface plasmon polaritons in a beamsplitter structure, i.e. utilising the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect, and its presence is verified using quantum state tomography. The amount of entanglement is quantified by the concurrence and we find values of up to 0.77 +/- 0.04. Verifying entanglement in the output state from HOM interference is a nontrivial task and cannot be inferred from the visibility alone. The techniques we use to verify entanglement could be applied to other types of photonic system and therefore may be useful for the characterisation of a range of different nanophotonic quantum devices.
Recently [Cavalcanti textit{et al.} Nat Commun textbf{6}, 7941 (2015)] proposed a method to certify the presence of entanglement in asymmetric networks, where some users do not have control over the measurements they are performing. Such asymmetry naturally emerges in realistic situtations, such as in cryptographic protocols over quantum networks. Here we implement such semi-device independent techniques to experimentally witness all types of entanglement on a three-qubit photonic W state. Furthermore we analise the amount of genuine randomness that can be certified in this scenario from any bipartition of the three-qubit W state.