Dylan J. Saunders

Experimental EPR-steering using Bell-local states

Erwin Schrodinger introduced in 1935 the concept of ‘steering’, which generalizes the famed Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox. Steering sits in between quantum entanglement and non-locality — that is, entanglement is necessary for steering, but steering can be achieved, as has now been demonstrated experimentally, with states that cannot violate a Bell inequality (and therefore non-locality).

Arbitrarily loss-tolerant Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering allowing a demonstration over 1 km of optical fiber with no detection loophole

Demonstrating nonclassical effects over longer and longer distances is essential for both quantum technology and fundamental science. The main challenge is the loss of photons during propagation, because considering only those cases where photons are detected opens a ‘‘detection loophole’’ in security whenever parties or devices are untrusted. Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering is equivalent to an entanglement-verification task in which one party (device) is untrusted. We derive arbitrarily loss-tolerant tests, enabling us to perform a detection-loophole-free demonstration of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering with parties separated by a coiled 1-km-long optical fiber, with a total loss of 8.9 dB (87%).

Interfacing GHz-bandwidth heralded single photons with a warm vapour Raman memory

Broadband quantum memories, used as temporal multiplexers, are a key component in photonic quantum information processing, as they make repeat-until-success strategies scalable. We demonstrate a prototype system, operating on-demand, by interfacing a warm vapour, high time-bandwidth-product Raman memory with a travelling wave spontaneous parametric down-conversion source. We store single photons and observe a clear influence of the input photon statistics on the retrieved light, which we find currently to be limited by noise. We develop a theoretical model that identifies four-wave mixing as the sole important noise source and point towards practical solutions for noise-free operation.

A cavity-enhanced room-temperature broadband Raman memory

Quantum memories enable the synchronisation of photonic operations. Raman memories are a promising platform, but are susceptible to four-wave mixing noise. We present a demonstration of a cavity-enhanced Raman memory, showing suppression of four-wave mixing.

Experimental measurement-device-independent verification of quantum steering

Bell non-locality between distant quantum systems--that is, joint correlations which violate a Bell inequality--can be verified without trusting the measurement devices used, nor those performing the measurements. This leads to unconditionally secure protocols for quantum information tasks such as cryptographic key distribution. However, complete verification of Bell non-locality requires high detection efficiencies, and is not robust to typical transmission losses over long distances. In contrast, quantum or Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering, a weaker form of quantum correlation, can be verified for arbitrarily low detection efficiencies and high losses. The cost is that current steering-verification protocols require complete trust in one of the measurement devices and its operator, allowing only one-sided secure key distribution. Here we present measurement-device-independent steering protocols that remove this need for trust, even when Bell non-locality is not present. We experimentally demonstrate this principle for singlet states and states that do not violate a Bell inequality.

Broadband noise-free optical quantum memory with neutral nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond

It is proposed that the ground-state manifold of the neutral nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond could be used as a quantum two-level system in a solid-state-based implementation of a broadband noise-free quantum optical memory. The proposal is based on the same-spin Λ-type three-level system created between the two E orbital ground states and the A1 orbital excited state of the center, and the cross-linear polarization selection rules obtained with the application of a transverse electric field or uniaxial stress. Possible decay and decoherence mechanisms of this system are discussed, and it is shown that high-efficiency, noise-free storage of photons as short as a few tens of picoseconds for at least a few nanoseconds could be possible at low temperature.

Towards practical quantum metrology with photon counting

Jonathan C. F. Matthews∗, †, , Xiao-Qi Zhou∗, , Hugo Cable∗‡, , Peter J. Shadbolt∗, , Dylan J. Saunders, Gabriel A. Durkin, Geoff J. Pryde§, , Jeremy L. O’Brien¶, 1 1 Centre for Quantum Photonics, H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory and Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Bristol, Merchant Venturers Building, Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UB, UK. 2 Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore 3 Centre for Quantum Dynamics and Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, Griffith University, Brisbane 4111, Australia 4 Google/NASA QuAIL, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035, USA (Dated: May 11, 2014)

Experimental demonstration of nonbilocal quantum correlations

Local theories using two independent hidden variables to model separate sources are violated with two entangled photon pairs. Quantum mechanics admits correlations that cannot be explained by local realistic models. The most studied models are the standard local hidden variable models, which satisfy the well-known Bell inequalities. To date, most works have focused on bipartite entangled systems. We consider correlations between three parties connected via two independent entangled states. We investigate the new type of so-called “bilocal” models, which correspondingly involve two independent hidden variables. These models describe scenarios that naturally arise in quantum networks, where several independent entanglement sources are used. Using photonic qubits, we build such a linear three-node quantum network and demonstrate nonbilocal correlations by violating a Bell-like inequality tailored for bilocal models. Furthermore, we show that the demonstration of nonbilocality is more noise-tolerant than that of standard Bell nonlocality in our three-party quantum network.

Theory of noise suppression in Λ -type quantum memories by means of a cavity

Quantum memories, capable of storing single photons or other quantum states of light, to be retrieved on demand, offer a route to large-scale quantum information processing with light. A promising class of memories is based on far-off-resonant Raman absorption in ensembles of Λ-type atoms. However, at room temperature these systems exhibit unwanted four-wave mixing, which is prohibitive for applications at the single-photon level. Here, we show how this noise can be suppressed by placing the storage medium inside a moderate-finesse optical cavity, thereby removing the main roadblock hindering this approach to quantum memory.

The simplest demonstrations of quantum nonlocality

We investigate the complexity cost of demonstrating the key types of nonclassical correlations—Bell inequality violation, Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen (EPR)-steering, and entanglement—with independent agents, theoretically and in a photonic experiment. We show that the complexity cost exhibits a hierarchy among these three tasks, mirroring the recently discovered hierarchy for how robust they are to noise. For Bell inequality violations, the simplest test is the well-known Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt test, but for EPR-steering and entanglement the tests that involve the fewest number of detection patterns require nonprojective measurements. The simplest EPR-steering test requires a choice of projective measurement for one agent and a single nonprojective measurement for the other, while the simplest entanglement test uses just a single nonprojective measurement for each agent. In both of these cases, we derive our inequalities using the concept of circular two-designs. This leads to the interesting feature that in our photonic demonstrations, the correlation of interest is independent of the angle between the linear polarizers used by the two parties, which thus require no alignment.