We propose periodically-modulated entangled states of light and show that they can be generated in two experimentally feasible schemes of nondegenerate optical parametric oscillator (NOPO): (i) driven by continuously modulated pump field; (ii) under action of a periodic sequence of identical laser pulses. We show that the time-modulation of the pump field amplitude essentially improves the degree of continuous-variable entanglement in NOPO. We develop semiclassical and quantum theories of these devices for both below- and above-threshold regimes. Our analytical results are in well agrement with numerical simulation and support a concept of time-modulated entangled states.
When applied to dynamical systems, both classical and quantum, time periodic modulations can produce complex non-equilibrium states which are often termed chaotic`. Being well understood within the unitary Hamiltonian framework, this phenomenon is less explored in open quantum systems. Here we consider quantum chaotic state emerging in a leaky cavity, when an intracavity photonic mode is coherently pumped with the intensity varying periodically in time. We show that a single spin, when placed inside the cavity and coupled to the mode, can moderate transitions between regular and chaotic regimes -- that are identified by using quantum Lyapunov exponents -- and thus can be used to control the degree of chaos. In an experiment, these transitions can be detected by analyzing photon emission statistics.
We study the scattering of photons from periodically modulated quantum-optical systems. For excitation-number conserving quantum optical systems, we connect the analytic structure of the frequency-domain N-photon scattering matrix of the system to the Floquet decomposition of its effective Hamiltonian. Furthermore, it is shown that the first order contribution to the transmission or equal-time N-photon correlation spectrum with respect to the modulation frequency is completely geometric in nature i.e. it only depends on the Hamiltonian trajectory and not on the precise nature of the modulation being applied.
The authors demonstrate a form of two-photon-counting interferometry by measuring the coincidence counts between single-photon-counting detectors at an output port of a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) following injection of broad-band time-frequency-entangled photon pairs (EPP) generated from collinear spontaneous parametric down conversion into a single input port. Spectroscopy and refractometry are performed on a sample inserted in one internal path of the MZI by scanning the other path in length, which acquires phase and amplitude information about the samples linear response. Phase modulation and lock-in detection are introduced to increase detection signal-to-noise ratio and implement a down-sampling technique for scanning the interferometer delay, which reduces the sampling requirements needed to reproduce fully the temporal interference pattern. The phase-modulation technique also allows the contributions of various quantum-state pathways leading to the final detection outcomes to be extracted individually. Feynman diagrams frequently used in the context of molecular spectroscopy are used to describe the interferences resulting from the coherence properties of time-frequency EPPs passing through the MZI. These results are an important step toward implementation of a proposed method for molecular spectroscopy, i.e. quantum-light-enhanced two-dimensional spectroscopy.
In this paper, we address the issue of the generation of non-degenerate cross-polarization-entangled photon pairs using type-II periodically poled lithium niobate. We show that, by an appropriate engineering of the quasi-phase-matching grating, it is possible to simultaneously satisfy the conditions for two spontaneous parametric down-conversion processes, namely ordinary pump photon down-conversion to either extraordinary signal and ordinary idler paired photons, or to ordinary signal and extraordinary idler paired photons. In contrast to single type-II phase-matching, these two processes, when enabled together, can lead to the direct production of cross-polarization-entangled state for non degenerate signal and idler wavelengths. Such a scheme should be of great interest in applications requiring polarization-entangled non degenerate paired photons with, for instance, one of the entangled photons at an appropriate wavelength being used for local operation or for quantum storage in an atomic ensemble, and the other one at the typical wavelength of 1550 nm for propagation through an optical fiber.
A novel method of macroscopically entangled light-pair generation is presented for a quantum laser using randomness-based deterministic phase control of coherent light in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI). Unlike the particle nature-based quantum correlation in conventional quantum mechanics, the wave nature of photons is applied for collective phase control of coherent fields, resulting in a deterministically controllable nonclassical phenomenon. For the proof of principle, the entanglement between output light fields from an MZI is examined using the Hong-Ou-Mandel-type anticorrelation technique, where the anticorrelation is a direct evidence of the nonclassical features in an interferometric scheme. For the generation of random phase bases between two bipartite input coherent fields, a deterministic control of opposite frequency shifts results in phase sensitive anticorrelation, which is a macroscopic quantum feature.