Anton Zeilinger

Experimental quantum teleportation

Quantum teleportation — the transmission and reconstruction over arbitrary distances of the state of a quantum system — is demonstrated experimentally. During teleportation, an initial photon which carries the polarization that is to be transferred and one of a pair of entangled photons are subjected to a measurement such that the second photon of the entangled pair acquires the polarization of the initial photon. This latter photon can be arbitrarily far away from the initial one. Quantum teleportation will be a critical ingredient for quantum computation networks.

Bell’s theorem without inequalities

It is demonstrated that the premisses of the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paper are inconsistent when applied to quantum systems consisting of at least three particles. The demonstration reveals that the EPR program contradicts quantum mechanics even for the cases of perfect correlations. By perfect correlations is meant arrangements by which the result of the measurement on one particle can be predicted with certainty given the outcomes of measurements on the other particles of the system. This incompatibility with quantum mechanics is stronger than the one previously revealed for two‐particle systems by Bell’s inequality, where no contradiction arises at the level of perfect correlations. Both spin‐correlation and multiparticle interferometry examples are given of suitable three‐ and four‐particle arrangements, both at the gedanken and at the real experiment level.

Violation of Bell's inequality under strict Einstein locality conditions

We observe strong violation of Bells inequality in an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-type experiment with independent observers. Our experiment definitely implements the ideas behind the well-known work by Aspect et al. We for the first time fully enforce the condition of locality, a central assumption in the derivation of Bells theorem. The necessary spacelike separation of the observations is achieved by sufficient physical distance between the measurement stations, by ultrafast and random setting of the analyzers, and by completely independent data registration.

Going Beyond Bell’s Theorem

Bell’s Theorem proved that one cannot in general reproduce the results of quantum theory with a classical, deterministic local model. However, Einstein originally considered the case where one could define an “element of reality”, namely for the much simpler case where one could predict with certainty a definite outcome for an experiment For this simple case, Bell’s Theorem says nothing. But by using a slightly more complicated model than Bell, one can show that even in this simple case where one can make definite predictions, one still cannot generally introduce deterministic, local models to explain the results.

Experimental test of quantum nonlocality in three-photon Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger entanglement

Bells theorem states that certain statistical correlations predicted by quantum physics for measurements on two-particle systems cannot be understood within a realistic picture based on local properties of each individual particle—even if the two particles are separated by large distances. Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen first recognized the fundamental significance of these quantum correlations (termed ‘entanglement’ by Schrödinger) and the two-particle quantum predictions have found ever-increasing experimental support. A more striking conflict between quantum mechanical and local realistic predictions (for perfect correlations) has been discovered; but experimental verification has been difficult, as it requires entanglement between at least three particles. Here we report experimental confirmation of this conflict, using our recently developed method to observe three-photon entanglement, or ‘Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger’ (GHZ) states. The results of three specific experiments, involving measurements of polarization correlations between three photons, lead to predictions for a fourth experiment; quantum physical predictions are mutually contradictory with expectations based on local realism. We find the results of the fourth experiment to be in agreement with the quantum prediction and in striking conflict with local realism.

Experimental one-way quantum computing

Standard quantum computation is based on sequences of unitary quantum logic gates that process qubits. The one-way quantum computer proposed by Raussendorf and Briegel is entirely different. It has changed our understanding of the requirements for quantum computation and more generally how we think about quantum physics. This new model requires qubits to be initialized in a highly entangled cluster state. From this point, the quantum computation proceeds by a sequence of single-qubit measurements with classical feedforward of their outcomes. Because of the essential role of measurement, a one-way quantum computer is irreversible. In the one-way quantum computer, the order and choices of measurements determine the algorithm computed. We have experimentally realized four-qubit cluster states encoded into the polarization state of four photons. We characterize the quantum state fully by implementing experimental four-qubit quantum state tomography. Using this cluster state, we demonstrate the feasibility of one-way quantum computing through a universal set of one- and two-qubit operations. Finally, our implementation of Grovers search algorithm demonstrates that one-way quantum computation is ideally suited for such tasks.Standard quantum computation is based on sequences of unitary quantum logic gates which process qubits. The one-way quantum computer proposed by Raussendorf and Briegel is entirely different. It has changed our understanding of the requirements for quantum computation and more generally how we think about quantum physics. This new model requires qubits to be initialized in a highly-entangled cluster state. From this point, the quantum computation proceeds by a sequence of single-qubit measurements with classical feedforward of their outcomes. Because of the essential role of measurement a one-way quantum computer is irreversible. In the one-way quantum computer the order and choices of measurements determine the algorithm computed. We have experimentally realized four-qubit cluster states encoded into the polarization state of four photons. We fully characterize the quantum state by implementing the first experimental four-qubit quantum state tomography. Using this cluster state we demonstrate the feasibility of one-way quantum computing through a universal set of one- and two-qubit operations. Finally, our implementation of Grovers search algorithm demonstrates that one-way quantum computation is ideally suited for such tasks.

Entanglement-based quantum communication over 144km

Quantum Entanglement is the essence of quantum physics and inspires fundamental questions about the principles of nature. Moreover it is also the basis for emerging technologies of quantum information processing such as quantum cryptography, quantum teleportation and quantum computation. Bells discovery, that correlations measured on entangled quantum systems are at variance with a local realistic picture led to a flurry of experiments confirming the quantum predictions. However, it is still experimentally undecided whether quantum entanglement can survive global distances, as predicted by quantum theory. Here we report the violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality measured by two observers separated by 144 km between the Canary Islands of La Palma and Tenerife via an optical free-space link using the Optical Ground Station (OGS) of the European Space Agency (ESA). Furthermore we used the entangled pairs to generate a quantum cryptographic key under experimental conditions and constraints characteristic for a Space-to-ground experiment. The distance in our experiment exceeds all previous free-space experiments by more than one order of magnitude and exploits the limit for ground-based free-space communication; significantly longer distances can only be reached using air- or space-based platforms. The range achieved thereby demonstrates the feasibility of quantum communication in space, involving satellites or the International Space Station (ISS).

Quantum Cryptography with Entangled Photons

By realizing a quantum cryptography system based on polarization entangled photon pairs we establish highly secure keys, because a single photon source is approximated and the inherent randomness of quantum measurements is exploited. We implement a novel key distribution scheme using Wigners inequality to test the security of the quantum channel, and, alternatively, realize a variant of the BB84 protocol. Our system has two completely independent users separated by 360 m, and generates raw keys at rates of 400-800 bits/s with bit error rates around 3%.

Self-cooling of a micromirror by radiation pressure.

Cooling of mechanical resonators is currently a popular topic in many fields of physics including ultra-high precision measurements, detection of gravitational waves and the study of the transition between classical and quantum behaviour of a mechanical system. Here we report the observation of self-cooling of a micromirror by radiation pressure inside a high-finesse optical cavity. In essence, changes in intensity in a detuned cavity, as caused by the thermal vibration of the mirror, provide the mechanism for entropy flow from the mirror’s oscillatory motion to the low-entropy cavity field. The crucial coupling between radiation and mechanical motion was made possible by producing free-standing micromirrors of low mass (m ≈ 400 ng), high reflectance (more than 99.6%) and high mechanical quality (Q ≈ 10,000). We observe cooling of the mechanical oscillator by a factor of more than 30; that is, from room temperature to below 10 K. In addition to purely photothermal effects we identify radiation pressure as a relevant mechanism responsible for the cooling. In contrast with earlier experiments, our technique does not need any active feedback. We expect that improvements of our method will permit cooling ratios beyond 1,000 and will thus possibly enable cooling all the way down to the quantum mechanical ground state of the micromirror.

Observation of Three-Photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger Entanglement

We present the experimental observation of polarization entanglement for three spatially separated photons. Such states of more than two entangled particles, known as GHZ states, play a crucial role in fundamental tests of quantum mechanics versus local realism and in many quantum information and quantum computation schemes. Our experimental arrangement is such that we start with two pairs of entangled photons and register one photon in a way that any information as to which pair it belongs to is erased. The registered events at the detectors for the remaining three photons then exhibit the desired GHZ correlations.