No Arabic abstract
Multi-photon interference reveals strictly non-classical phenomena. Its applications range from fundamental tests of quantum mechanics to photonic quantum information processing, where a significant fraction of key experiments achieved so far comes from multi-photon state manipulation. We review the progress, both theoretical and experimental, of this rapidly advancing research. The emphasis is given to the creation of photonic entanglement of various forms, tests of the completeness of quantum mechanics (in particular, violations of local realism), quantum information protocols for quantum communication (e.g., quantum teleportation, entanglement purification and quantum repeater), and quantum computation with linear optics. We shall limit the scope of our review to few photon phenomena involving measurements of discrete observables.
We experimentally simulate in a photonic setting non-Hermitian (NH) metals characterized by the topological properties of their nodal band structures. Implementing nonunitary time evolution in reciprocal space followed by interferometric measurements, we probe the complex eigenenergies of the corresponding NH Bloch Hamiltonians, and study in detail the topology of their exceptional lines (ELs), the NH counterpart of nodal lines in Hermitian systems. We focus on two distinct types of NH metals: two-dimensional systems with symmetry-protected ELs, and three-dimensional systems possessing symmetry-independent topological ELs in the form of knots. While both types feature open Fermi surfaces, we experimentally observe their distinctions by analyzing the impact of symmetry-breaking perturbations on the topology of ELs.
We show how to generate tripartite entanglement in a cavity magnomechanical system which consists of magnons, cavity microwave photons, and phonons. The magnons are embodied by a collective motion of a large number of spins in a macroscopic ferrimagnet, and are driven directly by an electromagnetic field. The cavity photons and magnons are coupled via magnetic dipole interaction, and the magnons and phonons are coupled via magnetostrictive (radiation pressure-like) interaction. We show optimal parameter regimes for achieving the tripartite entanglement where magnons, cavity photons, and phonons are entangled with each other, and we further prove that the steady state of the system is a genuinely tripartite entangled state. The entanglement is robust against temperature. Our results indicate that cavity magnomechanical systems could provide a promising platform for the study of macroscopic quantum phenomena.
We propose a new scheme to generate the multi-photon entanglement via two steps, that is, first to utilize the superconductor to create the multi-quantum-dot entanglement, and then to use the input photon to transfer it into the multi-photon entanglement. Moreover, the maximum probability for the swap of photon and quantum-dot qubits is close to unit for a single input Gaussian photon. More importantly, by mapping the multi-quantum-dot state into the coherent states of oscillators, such as cavity modes, the multi-quantum-dot entanglement in our scheme can be protected from the decoherence induced by the noise. Thus, it is possible to generate more than eight spatially separated entangled photons in the realistic experimental conditions.
We consider a dissipative evolution of parametrically-driven qubits-cavity system under the periodical modulation of coupling energy between two subsystems, which leads to the amplification of counterrotating processes. We reveal a very rich dynamical behavior of this hybrid system. In particular, we find that the energy dissipation in one of the subsystems can enhance quantum effects in another subsystem. For instance, optimal cavity decay assists to stabilize entanglement and quantum correlations between qubits even in the steady state and to compensate finite qubit relaxation. On the contrary, energy dissipation in qubit subsystem results in the enhanced photon production from vacuum for strong modulation, but destroys both quantum concurrence and quantum mutual information between qubits. Our results provide deeper insights to nonstationary cavity quantum electrodynamics in context of quantum information processing and might be of importance for dissipative quantum state engineering.
This thesis reports advances in the theory of design, characterization and simulation of multi-photon multi-channel interferometers. I advance the design of interferometers through an algorithm to realize an arbitrary discrete unitary transformation on the combined spatial and internal degrees of freedom of light. This procedure effects an arbitrary $n_{s}n_{p}times n_{s}n_{p}$ unitary matrix on the state of light in $n_{s}$ spatial and $n_{p}$ internal modes. I devise an accurate and precise procedure for characterizing any multi-port linear optical interferometer using one- and two-photon interference. Accuracy is achieved by estimating and correcting systematic errors that arise due to spatiotemporal and polarization mode mismatch. Enhanced accuracy and precision are attained by fitting experimental coincidence data to a curve simulated using measured source spectra. The efficacy of our characterization procedure is verified by numerical simulations. I develop group-theoretic methods for the analysis and simulation of linear interferometers. I devise a graph-theoretic algorithm to construct the boson realizations of the canonical SU$(n)$ basis states, which reduce the canonical subgroup chain, for arbitrary $n$. The boson realizations are employed to construct $mathcal{D}$-functions, which are the matrix elements of arbitrary irreducible representations, of SU$(n)$ in the canonical basis. I show that immanants of principal submatrices of a unitary matrix $T$ are a sum of the diagonal $mathcal{D}(Omega)$-functions of group element $Omega$ over $t$ determined by the choice of submatrix and over the irrep $(lambda)$ determined by the immanant under consideration. The algorithm for $mathrm{SU}(n)$ $mathcal{D}$-function computation and the results connecting these functions with immanants open the possibility of group-theoretic analysis and simulation of linear optics.