Matteo G. A. Paris

Gaussian quantum discord.

We extend the quantum discord to continuous variable systems and evaluate Gaussian quantum discord C(ϱ) for bipartite Gaussian states. In particular, for squeezed-thermal states, we explicitly maximize the extractable information over Gaussian measurements: C(ϱ) is minimized by a generalized measurement rather than a projective one. Almost all squeezed-thermal states have nonzero Gaussian discord: They may be either separable or entangled if the discord is below the threshold C(ϱ) = 1, whereas they are all entangled above the threshold. We elucidate the general role of state parameters in determining the discord and discuss its evolution in noisy channels.

QUANTUM ESTIMATION FOR QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY

Several quantities of interest in quantum information, including entanglement and purity, are nonlinear functions of the density matrix and cannot, even in principle, correspond to proper quantum o...

Teleportation improvement by inconclusive photon subtraction

Inconclusive photon subtraction (IPS) is a conditional measurement scheme to force nonlinear evolution of a given state. In IPS the input state is mixed with the vacuum in a beam splitter and then the reflected beam is revealed by on-off photodetection. When the detector clicks we have the (inconclusive) photon subtracted state. We show that IPS on both channels of an entangled twin beam of radiation improves the fidelity of coherent state teleportation if the energy of the incoming twin beam is below a certain threshold, which depends on the beam splitter transmissivity and the quantum efficiency of photodetectors. We show that the energy threshold diverges when the transmissivity and the efficiency approach unity and compare our results with that of previous works on conclusive photon subtraction.

Experimental Reconstruction of Photon Statistics without Photon Counting

Experimental reconstructions of photon number distributions of both continuous-wave and pulsed light beams are reported. Our scheme is based on on/off avalanche photo-detection assisted by maximum-likelihood estimation and does not involve photon counting. Reconstructions of the distribution for both semiclassical and quantum states of light are reported for single-mode as well as for multi-mode beams.

Three-mode entanglement by interlinked nonlinear interactions in optical χ (2) media

We address the generation of fully inseparable three-mode entangled states of radiation by interlinked nonlinear interactions in χ(2) media. We show how three-mode entanglement can be used to realize symmetric and asymmetric telecloning machines, which achieve optimal fidelity for coherent states. An experimental implementation involving a single nonlinear crystal in which the two interactions take place simultaneously is suggested. Preliminary experimental results showing the feasibility and the effectiveness of the interaction scheme with a seeded crystal are also presented.

Sub-shot-noise photon-number correlation in a mesoscopic twin beam of light

We demonstrate sub-shot-noise photon-number correlations in a (temporal) multimode mesoscopic ({approx}10{sup 3} detected photons) twin beam produced by picosecond-pulsed spontaneous nondegenerate parametric down-conversion. We have separately detected the signal and idler distributions of photons collected in twin coherence areas and found that the variance of the photon-count difference goes below the shot-noise limit by 3.25 dB. The number of temporal modes contained in the twin beam, as well as the size of the twin coherence areas, depends on the pump intensity. Our scheme is based on spontaneous down-conversion and thus does not suffer from limitations due to the finite gain of the parametric process. Twin beams are also used to demonstrate the conditional preparation of a nonclassical (sub-Poissonian) state.

Remote state preparation and teleportation in phase space

Continuous variable remote state preparation and teleportation are analysed using Wigner functions in phase space. We suggest a remote squeezed state preparation scheme between two parties sharing an entangled twin beam, where homodyne detection on one beam is used as a conditional source of squeezing for the other beam. The scheme also works with noisy measurements, and provides squeezing if the homodyne quantum efficiency is larger than 50%. The phase space approach is shown to provide a convenient framework to describe teleportation as a generalized conditional measurement, and to evaluate relevant degrading effects, such the finite amount of entanglement, the losses along the line and the nonunit quantum efficiency at the sender location.

Optical phase estimation in the presence of phase diffusion.

The measurement problem for the optical phase has been traditionally attacked for noiseless schemes or in the presence of amplitude or detection noise. Here we address the estimation of phase in the presence of phase diffusion and evaluate the ultimate quantum limits to precision for phase-shifted Gaussian states. We look for the optimal detection scheme and derive approximate scaling laws for the quantum Fisher information and the optimal squeezing fraction in terms of the total energy and the amount of noise. We also find that homodyne detection is a nearly optimal detection scheme in the limit of very small and large noise.

Quantifying non-Gaussianity for quantum information

We address the quantification of non-Gaussianity (nG) of states and operations in continuous-variable systems and its use in quantum information. We start by illustrating in detail the properties and the relationships of two recentlyproposedmeasuresofnGbasedontheHilbert-Schmidtdistanceandthequantumrelativeentropy(QRE) between the state under examination and a reference Gaussian state. We then evaluate the non-Gaussianities of several families of non-Gaussian quantum states and show that the two measures have the same basic properties and also share the same qualitative behavior in most of the examples taken into account. However, we also show that they introduce a different relation of order; that is, they are not strictly monotone to each other. We exploit the nG measures for states in order to introduce a measure of nG for quantum operations, to assess Gaussification and de-Gaussification protocols, and to investigate in detail the role played by nG in entanglement-distillation protocols. Besides, we exploit the QRE-based nG measure to provide different insight on the extremality of Gaussian states for some entropic quantities such as conditional entropy, mutual information, and the Holevo bound. We also deal with parameter estimation and present a theorem connecting the QRE nG to the quantum Fisher information. Finally, since evaluation of the QRE nG measure requires the knowledge of the full density matrix, we derive some experimentally friendly lower bounds to nG for some classes of states and by considering the possibility of performing on the states only certain efficient or inefficient measurements.

Entanglement oscillations in non-Markovian quantum channels

We study the non-Markovian dynamics of a two-mode bosonic system interacting with two uncorrelated thermal bosonic reservoirs. We present the solution to the exact microscopic Master equation in terms of the quantum characteristic function and study in detail the dynamics of entanglement for bipartite Gaussian states. In particular, we analyze the effects of short-time system-reservoir correlations on the separability thresholds and show that the relevant parameter is the reservoir spectral density. If the frequencies of the involved modes are within the reservoir spectral density, entanglement persists for a longer time than in a Markovian channel. On the other hand, when the reservoir spectrum is out of resonance, short-time correlations lead to a faster decoherence and to the appearance of entanglement oscillations.