Antonín Černoch

Temporal steering and security of quantum key distribution with mutually unbiased bases against individual attacks

Temporal steering, which is a temporal analog of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering, refers to temporal quantum correlations between the initial and final state of a quantum system. Our analysis of temporal steering inequalities in relation to the average quantum bit error rates reveals the interplay between temporal steering and quantum cloning, which guarantees the security of quantum key distribution based on mutually unbiased bases against individual attacks. The key distributions analyzed here include the Bennett-Brassard 1984 protocol and the six-state 1998 protocol by Bruss. Moreover, we define a temporal steerable weight, which enables us to identify a kind of monogamy of temporal correlation that is essential to quantum cryptography and useful for analyzing various scenarios of quantum causality.

Resource-efficient linear-optical quantum router

All-linear-optical scheme for fully featured quantum router is presented. This device directs the signal photonic qubit according to the state of one control photonic qubit. In the introduction we formulate the list of requirements imposed on a fully quantum router. Then we describe our proposal showing the exact principle of operation on a linear-optical scheme. Subsequently we provide generalization of the scheme in order to optimize the success probability by means of a tunable controlled-phase gate. At the end, we show how one can modify the device to route multiple signal qubits using the same control qubit.

Experimental phase-covariant cloning of polarization states of single photons

The experimental realization of optimal symmetric phase-covariant

Fiber-optics implementation of an asymmetric phase-covariant quantum cloner

1\ensuremath{\rightarrow}2

Several experimental realizations of symmetric phase-covariant quantum cloners of single-photon qubits

cloning of qubit states is presented. The qubits are represented by polarization states of photons generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The experiment is based on the interference of two photons on a custom-made beam splitter with different splitting ratios for vertical and horizontal polarization components. From the measured data we have estimated the implemented cloning transformation using the maximum-likelihood method. The result shows that the realized transformation is very close to the ideal one and the map fidelity reaches 94%.

Experimental implementation of the optimal linear-optical controlled phase gate.

We present the experimental realization of optimal symmetric and asymmetric phase-covariant 1-->2 cloning of qubit states using fiber optics. The state of each qubit is encoded into a single photon which can propagate through two optical fibers. The operation of our device is based on one- and two-photon interference. We have demonstrated the creation of two copies for a wide range of qubit states from the equator of the Bloch sphere. The measured fidelities of both copies are close to the theoretical values and they surpass the theoretical maximum obtainable with the universal cloner.

Experimental temporal quantum steering

We compare several optical implementations of phase-covariant cloning machines. The experiments are based on copying of the polarization state of a single photon in bulk optics by a special unbalanced beam splitter or by a balanced beam splitter accompanied by a state filtering. Also the all-fiber-based setup is discussed, where the information is encoded into spatial modes, i.e., the photon can propagate through two optical fibers. Each of the four implementations possesses some advantages and disadvantages that are discussed.

Entanglement-based linear-optical qubit amplifier

We report on the first experimental realization of optimal linear-optical controlled phase gates for arbitrary phases. The realized scheme is entirely flexible in that the phase shift can be tuned to any given value. All such controlled phase gates are optimal in the sense that they operate at the maximum possible success probabilities that are achievable within the framework of postselected linear-optical implementations with vacuum ancillas. The quantum gate is implemented by using bulk optical elements and polarization encoding of qubit states. We have experimentally explored the remarkable observation that the optimum success probability is not monotone in the phase.

Experimental realization of linear-optical partial swap gates.

Temporal steering is a form of temporal correlation between the initial and final state of a quantum system. It is a temporal analogue of the famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (spatial) steering. We demonstrate, by measuring the photon polarization, that temporal steering allows two parties to verify if they have been interacting with the same particle, even if they have no information about what happened with the particle in between the measurements. This is the first experimental study of temporal steering. We also performed experimental tests, based on the violation of temporal steering inequalities, of the security of two quantum key distribution protocols against individual attacks. Thus, these results can lead to applications for secure quantum communications and quantum engineering.

Experimental asymmetric phase-covariant quantum cloning of polarization qubits

We propose a linear-optical scheme for an efficient amplification of a photonic qubit based on interaction of the signal mode with a pair of entangled ancillae. In contrast to a previous proposal for qubit amplifier by Gisin et al., [Phys Rev. Lett. 105, 070501 (2010)] the success probability of our device does not decrease asymptotically to zero with increasing gain. Moreover we show how the device can be used to restore entanglement deteriorated by transmission over a lossy channel and calculate the secure key rate for device-independent quantum key distribution.