Entanglement by a beam splitter: nonclassicality as a prerequisite for entanglement

A beam splitter is a simple, readily available device which can act to entangle the output optical fields. We show that a necessary condition for the fields at the output of the beam splitter to be entangled is that the pure input states exhibit nonclassical behavior. We generalize this proof for arbitrary (pure or impure) Gaussian input states. Specifically, nonclassicality of the input Gaussian fields is a necessary condition for entanglement of the field modes with the help of the beam splitter. We conjecture that this is a general property of the beam splitter: Nonclassicality of the inputs is a necessary condition for entangling fields in the beam splitter.