Multipartite entanglement and secret key distribution 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.

Unconstrained Capacities of Quantum Key Distribution and Entanglement Distillation for Pure-Loss Bosonic Broadcast Channels

We consider quantum key distribution (QKD) and entanglement distribution using a single-sender multiple-receiver pure-loss bosonic broadcast channel. We determine the unconstrained capacity region for the distillation of bipartite entanglement and secret key between the sender and each receiver, whenever they are allowed arbitrary public classical communication. A practical implication of our result is that the capacity region demonstrated drastically improves upon rates achievable using a naive time-sharing strategy, which has been employed in previously demonstrated network QKD systems. We show a simple example of the broadcast QKD protocol overcoming the limit of the point-to-point strategy. Our result is thus an important step toward opening a new framework of network channel-based quantum communication technology.

Fundamental precision limit of a Mach-Zehnder interferometric sensor when one of the inputs is the vacuum

In the lore of quantum metrology, one often hears (or reads) the following no-go theorem: If you put vacuum into one input port of a balanced Mach-Zehnder Interferometer, then no matter what you put into the other input port, and no matter what your detection scheme, the sensitivity can never be better than the shot noise limit (SNL). Often the proof of this theorem is cited to be in Ref. [C. Caves, Phys. Rev. D 23, 1693 (1981)], but upon further inspection, no such claim is made there. A quantum-Fisher-information-based argument suggestive of this no-go theorem appears in Ref. [M. Lang and C. Caves, Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 173601 (2013)], but is not stated in its full generality. Here we thoroughly explore this no-go theorem and give the rigorous statement: the no-go theorem holds whenever the unknown phase shift is split between both arms of the interferometer, but remarkably does not hold when only one arm has the unknown phase shift. In the latter scenario, we provide an explicit measurement strategy that beats the SNL. We also point out that these two scenarios are physically different and correspond to different types of sensing applications.

Projective measurement onto arbitrary superposition of coherent state bases

One of the peculiar features in quantum mechanics is that a superposition of macroscopically distinct states can exits. In optical system, this is highlighted by a superposition of coherent states (SCS), i.e. a superposition of classical states. Recently this highly nontrivial quantum state and its variant have been demonstrated experimentally. Here we demonstrate the superposition of coherent states in quantum measurement which is also a key concept in quantum mechanics. More precisely, we propose and implement a projection measurement onto the arbitrary superposition of the SCS bases in optical system. The measurement operators are reconstructed experimentally by a novel quantum detector tomography protocol. Our device is realized by combining the displacement operation and photon counting, well established technologies, and thus has implications in various optical quantum information processing applications.

Optical phase estimation via coherent state and displaced photon counting

We consider the phase sensing via weak optical coherent state at quantum limit precision. A new detection scheme for the phase estimation is proposed which is inspired by the suboptimal quantum measurement in coherent optical communication. We theoretically analyze a performance of our detection scheme, which we call the displaced-photon counting, for phase sensing in terms of the Fisher information and show that the displaced-photon counting outperforms the static homodyne and heterodyne detections in wide range of the target phase. The proof-of-principle experiment is performed with linear optics and a superconducting nanowire single photon detector. The result shows that our scheme overcomes the limit of the ideal homodyne measurement even under practical imperfections.

Unconstrained distillation capacities of a pure-loss bosonic broadcast channel

Bosonic channels are important in practice as they form a simple model for free-space or fiber-optic communication. Here we consider a single-sender two-receiver pure-loss bosonic broadcast channel and determine the unconstrained capacity region for the distillation of bipartite entanglement and secret key between the sender and each receiver, whenever they are allowed arbitrary public classical communication. We show how the state merging protocol leads to achievable rates in this setting, giving an inner bound on the capacity region. We also evaluate an outer bound on the region by using the relative entropy of entanglement and a `reduction by teleportation technique. The outer bounds match the inner bounds in the infinite-energy limit, thereby establishing the unconstrained capacity region for such channels. Our result could provide a useful benchmark for implementing a broadcasting of entanglement and secret key through such channels. An important open question relevant to practice is to determine the capacity region in both this setting and the single-sender single-receiver case when there is an energy constraint on the transmitter.

Towards practical device-independent quantum key distribution with spontaneous parametric downconversion sources, on-off photodetectors and entanglement swapping

Device-independent quantum key distribution (DIQKD) guarantees unconditional security of secret key without making assumptions about the internal workings of the devices used. It does so using the loophole-free violation of a Bells inequality. The primary challenge in realizing DIQKD in practice is the detection loophole problem that is inherent to photonic tests of Bells inequalities over lossy channels. We revisit the proposal of Curty and Moroder [Phys. Rev. A 84, 010304(R) (2011)] to use a linear optics-based entanglement-swapping relay (ESR) to counter this problem. We consider realistic models for the entanglement sources and photodetectors; more precisely, (a) polarization-entangled states based on pulsed spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC) sources with infinitely higher order multi-photon components and multimode spectral structure, and (b) on-off photodetectors with non-unit efficiencies and non-zero dark count probabilities. We show that the ESR-based scheme is robust against the above imperfections and enables positive key rates at distances much larger than what is possible otherwise.

Fundamental rate-loss tradeoff for optical quantum key distribution

Since 1984, various optical quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols have been proposed and examined. In all of them, the rate of secret key generation decays exponentially with distance. A natural and fundamental question is then whether there are yet-to-be discovered optical QKD protocols (without quantum repeaters) that could circumvent this rate-distance tradeoff. This paper provides a major step towards answering this question. We show that the secret-key-agreement capacity of a lossy and noisy optical channel assisted by unlimited two-way public classical communication is limited by an upper bound that is solely a function of the channel loss, regardless of how much optical power the protocol may use. Our result has major implications for understanding the secret-key-agreement capacity of optical channels---a long-standing open problem in optical quantum information theory---and strongly suggests a real need for quantum repeaters to perform QKD at high rates over long distances.

Full analysis of multi-photon pair effects in spontaneous parametric down conversion based photonic quantum information processing

In spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) based quantum information processing (QIP) experiments, there is a tradeoff between the coincide count rates (i.e. the pumping power of the SPDC), which limits the rate of the protocol, and the visibility of the quantum interference, which limits the quality of the protocol. This tradeoff is mainly caused by the multi-photon pair emissions from the SPDCs. In theory, the problem is how to model the experiments without truncating these multi-photon emissions while including practical imperfections. In this paper, we establish a method to theoretically simulate SPDC based QIPs which fully incorporates the effect of multi-photon emissions and various practical imperfections. The key ingredient in our method is the application of the characteristic function formalism which has been used in continuous variable QIPs. We apply our method to three examples, the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen interference experiments, and the concatenated entanglement swapping protocol. For the first two examples, we show that our theoretical results quantitatively agree with the recent experimental results. Also we provide the closed expressions for these the interference visibilities with the full multi-photon components and various imperfections. For the last example, we provide the general theoretical form of the concatenated entanglement swapping protocol in our method and show the numerical results up to 5 concatenations. Our method requires only a small computation resource (few minutes by a commercially available computer) which was not possible by the previous theoretical approach. Our method will have applications in a wide range of SPDC based QIP protocols with high accuracy and a reasonable computation resource.

Capacity of optical communication in loss and noise with general Gaussian receivers

Laser-light (coherent-state) modulation is sufficient to achieve the ultimate (Holevo) capacity of classical communication over a lossy and noisy optical channel, but requires a receiver that jointly detects long modulated codewords with highly nonlinear quantum operations, which are near-impossible to realize using current technology. We analyze the capacity of the lossy-noisy optical channel when the transmitter uses coherent state modulation but the receiver is restricted to a general quantum-limited Gaussian receiver, i.e., one that may involve arbitrary combinations of Gaussian operations (passive linear optics: beamsplitters and phase-shifters, second order nonlinear optics (or active linear optics): squeezers, along with homodyne or heterodyne detection measurements) and any amount of classical feedforward within the receiver. Under these assumptions, we show that the Gaussian receiver that attains the maximum mutual information is either homodyne detection, heterodyne detection, or time sharing between the two, depending upon the received power level. In other words, our result shows that to exceed the theoretical limit of conventional coherent optical communications, one has to incorporate non-Gaussian, i.e., third or higher-order nonlinear operations in the receiver. Finally we compare our Gaussian receiver limit with experimentally feasible non-Gaussian receivers and show that in the regime of low received photon flux, it is possible to overcome the Gaussian receiver limit by relatively simple non-Gaussian receivers based on photon counting.