International Journal of Quantum Information

In the usual formulation of quantum theory, time is a global classical evolution parameter, not a local quantum observable. On the other hand, both canonical quantum gravity (which lacks fundamental time-evolution parameter) and the principle of spacetime covariance (which insists that time should be treated on an equal footing with space) suggest that quantum theory should be slightly reformulated, in a manner that promotes time to a local observable. Such a reformulated quantum theory is unitary in a more general sense than the usual quantum theory. In particular, this promotes the non-unitary Hawking radiation to a unitary phenomenon, which avoids the black-hole information paradox.

Recently, a novel operational strategy to access quantum correlation functions of the form Tr[AρB] was provided in [F. Buscemi, M. Dall'Arno, M. Ozawa and V. Vedral, arXiv:1312.4240]. Here we propose a realization scheme, that we call partial expectation values, implementing such strategy in terms of a unitary interaction with an ancillary system followed by the measurement of an observable on the ancilla. Our scheme is universal, being independent of ρ, A, and B, and it is optimal in a statistical sense. Our scheme is suitable for implementation with present quantum optical technology, and provides a new way to test uncertainty relations.

We address the dynamics of a two-qubit system interacting with a classical dephasing environment driven by a Gaussian stochastic process. Upon introducing the concept of entanglement-preserving time, we compare the degrading effects of different environments, e.g. those described by Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (OU) or fractional noise. In particular, we consider pure Bell states and mixtures of Bell states and study the typical values of the entanglement-preserving time for both independent and common environments. We found that engineering environments towards fractional Gaussian noise is useful to preserve entanglement as well as to improve its robustness against noise. We also address entanglement sudden death by studying the sudden-death time as a function of the initial negativity. We found that: (i) the sudden-death time is bounded from below by an increasing function of the initial negativity, (ii) the sudden-death time depends only slightly on the process used to describe the environment and exhibits typicality. Overall, our results show that engineering the environment has only a slight influence over the entanglement sudden-death time, while it represents a valuable resource to increase the entanglement-preserving time, i.e. to maintain entanglement closer to the initial level for a longer interaction time.

The traditional standard quantum mechanics (SQM) is unable to solve the spin-statistics problem, i.e. to justify the utterly important "Pauli exclusion principle". The present paper presents a simple and complete solution of the spin-statistics problem on the basis of the "conformal quantum geometrodynamics (CQG)", a theory that was found to reproduce successfully all relevant processes of the SQM based on Dirac's or Schrödinger's equations, including Heisenberg's uncertainty relations and non-local Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) correlations. When applied to a system made of many identical particles, an additional property of all elementary particles enters naturally into play: the "intrinsic helicity". This property, not considered in the SQM, determines the correct spin-statistics connection (SSC) observed in nature.

We propose a class of nonlinear coherent states which are experimentally feasible in cavity or ion-trap quantum electrodynamics. These quantum field states arise from a new type of photon addition and subtraction based on London phase operators, also known as Susskind–Glogower operators, that just displaces the mean photon number without scaling the photon distribution.

The approach to extend the notion of entanglement for characterizing the properties of quantum correlations in the state of a single qudit is presented. New information and entropic inequalities, such as the subadditivity condition, strong subadditivity condition, and monotonicity of relative entropy for a single qudit corresponding to an arbitrary spin state with spin j are discussed. The idea to employ quantum correlations in the single-qudit state, such as the entanglement, for developing a new quantum technique in quantum computing and quantum communication is proposed. Examples of qutrit and qudit with j = 3/2 are considered.

This paper is a contribution to the project "emergent quantum mechanics" unifying a variety of attempts to treat quantum mechanics (QMs) as emergent from other theories pretending on finer descriptions of quantum phenomena. More concretely it is about an attempt to model detection probabilities predicted by QM for single photon states by using classical random fields interacting with detectors of the threshold type. Continuous field model, prequantum classical statistical field theory (PCSFT), was developed in recent years and its predictions about probabilities and correlations match well with QM. The main problem is to develop the corresponding measurement theory which would describe the transition from continuous fields to discrete events, "clicks of detectors". Some success was achieved and the click-probabilities for quantum observables can be derived from PCSFT by modeling interaction of fields with the threshold type detectors. However, already for the coefficient of second-order coherence g²(0) calculations are too complicated and only an estimation of g²(0) was obtained. In this paper, we present results of numerical simulation based on PCSFT and modeling of interaction with threshold type detectors. The "prequantum random field" interacting with a detector is modeled as the Brownian motion in the space of classical fields (Wiener process in complex Hilbert space). Simulation for g²(0) shows that this coefficient approaches zero with increase of the number of detections.

The possibility of approaching quantum simulation of "topological turbulence" is discussed. In the latter, the topological features of turbulent flow are ascribed to a purely group-theoretic and topological view through the group SDiff of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms and the Mapping Class Group for the 2D surfaces that foliate the 3D flow domain. A class of representations of the group of mapping classes for compact boundaryless surfaces is explicitly constructed in terms of the Witt–Virasoro Hopf-coalgebra and implemented in terms of su(1,1). This leads to a complex, nonlinear Hamiltonian naturally associated with the fluid diffeomorphisms that could lend itself to the quantum simulation of turbulence in Fock space.

In a general form, three-photon polarization states are superpositions of contributions from four three-photon polarization modes with four arbitrary complex coefficients. Entanglement of such states is defined as entanglement between their one-photon and two-photon parts. The degree of entanglement is found explicitly in terms of such entanglement quantifiers as the generalized concurrence, entropy of reduced states and the Schmidt parameter. Polarization Stokes vectors, as well as the Schmidt decompositions of three-photon states are found and discussed. Similarity and differences with respect to biphoton polarization states are discussed too.

We present a perturbative analysis of a Rabi model where the coupling between the quantized single-mode electromagnetic field and the two-level atom depends on the field intensity. Upon modeling the matter–radiation coupling through the Holstein–Primakoff realization of algebra su(1,1), we evaluate first- and second-order eigenenergies and eigenstates both in the weak-coupling regime (atom transition frequency smaller than the coupling strength) and in the strong-coupling regime. In the first case, among various effects, we observe a quadratic dependence on the photon number of energy eigenvalues and the possible formation of level doublets. In the strong-coupling case, the perturbative analysis becomes considerably complex due to the su(1,1)-valued form of the unperturbed Hamiltonian. The critical condition for the transition to an almost continuous spectrum is found in terms of the model parameters.

Single-photon sources represent a key enabling technology in quantum optics, and single color centers in diamond are a promising platform to serve this purpose, due to their high quantum efficiency and photostability at room temperature. The widely studied nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers are characterized by several limitations, thus other defects have recently been considered, with a specific focus of centers emitting in the near-infra red (NIR). In the present work, we report on the coupling of native NIR-emitting centers in high-quality single-crystal diamond with solid immersion lens (SIL) structures fabricated by focused ion beam (FIB) lithography. The reported improvements in terms of light collection efficiency make the proposed system an ideal platform for the development of single-photon emitters with appealing photophysical and spectral properties.

The Pauli exclusion principle (PEP) and, more generally, the spin-statistics connection, are at the very basis of our understanding of matter, life and Universe. The PEP spurs, presently, a lively debate on its possible limits, deeply rooted in the very foundations of Quantum Mechanics. It is, therefore, extremely important to test the limits of its validity. The Violation of the PEP (VIP) experiment established the best limit on the probability that PEP is violated by electrons, using the method of searching for PEP forbidden atomic transitions in copper. We describe the experimental method, the obtained results, and plans to go beyond the actual limit by upgrading the experimental apparatus. We discuss the possibility of using a similar experimental technique to search for X-rays as a signature of the spontaneous collapse of the wave function predicted by continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) theories.

Using no conventional measurements in position space, information extraction rates exceeding one bit per photon are achieved by employing high-dimensional correlated orbital angular momentum (OAM) states for object recognition. The correlations are shown to be insensitive to axial rotation of the target object: The information structure of an object's joint OAM coincidence spectrum is unchanged even when the object undergoes random rotations between each measurement. Additionally, OAM correlations alone are shown to be sufficient for full image reconstruction of complex, off-axis objects, and novel object symmetries are observed in the phases of OAM-object interaction transition amplitudes. Variations in mutual information rates, due to off-axis translation in the beam field, are studied, and it is shown that object symmetry signatures and information rates are independent of environmental factors sufficiently far from the beam center. The results motivate dynamic scanning applications in contexts where symmetry and small numbers of noninvasive measurements are desired.

The study of entanglement between bosonic systems is of primary importance for establishing feasible resources needed for implementing quantum information protocols, both in their interacting atomic or photonic realizations. Atomic systems are particularly efficient in the production of large amounts of entanglement, providing higher information density than conventional qubit entangled states. Such increased quantum resources pave the way to novel fundamental tests of nature and efficient applications in quantum information, metrology and sensing. We consider a basic setup made up of two parties A and B, each one populated by a single level bosonic variable. The bosons are interacting and can hop between A and B, thus describing a two-site Bose–Hubbard Hamiltonian. We consider the generation of quantum states in several situations that cover the majority of physical realizations: ground state, finite temperature, unitary dynamics, dissipation through dephasing and loss of particles. The system is analyzed through truncated exact diagonalization, as a function of the microscopic parameters. The nonseparability of the obtained quantum states is estimated by means of the negativity, which has recently been proven to be a suitable measure of entanglement [M. Roncaglia, A. Montorsi and M. Genovese, Phys. Rev. A 90 (2014) 062303]. Finally, we calculate lower bounds of the entanglement of formation (EOF), an indicator that quantifies the minimal amount of entanglement resources needed to build up such states.

The realization of hybrid entanglement between a microscopic (quantum) and a macroscopic (classical) system, in analogy to the situation of the famous Schrödinger's cat paradox, is an important milestone, both from the fundamental perspective and for possible applications in the processing of quantum information. The most straightforward optical implementation of this condition is that of the entanglement between a single-photon and a coherent state. In this work, we describe the first step towards the generation of this type of hybrid entanglement from the experimental perspective.

We analyze the dynamics of the quantum Rabi model for two qubits interacting through a common bosonic field (resonator), focusing on the generation and detection of maximally entangled states. We obtain analytical results for the unitary dynamics of this system in the slow-qubit (or degenerate) regime, considering ultra-strong coupling between qubits and resonator mode, for which the rotating wave approximation (RWA) is no longer applicable. We also numerically investigate the dynamics beyond the slow-qubit condition in order to study the validity of the model in the presence of less strict conditions.

The boson sampling problem has brought a lot of attention in the quantum information field because it is not efficiently solvable with a classical computer; nonetheless it can be implementable with linear optical interferometers with single-boson sources. Recently, we introduced a more general problem, the multi-boson correlation sampling problem, which allows to take advantage of the muti-mode spectral distribution of the bosonic sources together with time-correlated measurements in order to achieve a sampling not only over the output channels of the interferometer but also over the joint detection times. This problem was analyzed for both single-photon sources and thermal sources. In this work, we demonstrate that it is possible to use single qubit bosonic sources in order to sample not only in the described "space-time" degree of freedom but also over all the possible exponential number of multi-qubit output states.

Quantum reading is the art of exploiting the quantum properties of light to retrieve classical information stored in an optical memory with low energy and high accuracy. It was shown that the optimal strategy for quantum reading of beamsplitters largely outperforms coherent strategies, further allowing for perfect quantum reading, but requires a source challenging from the experimental viewpoint. Focusing on probes — i.e. BAT states and entangled coherent states (ECS) — which are experimentally feasible with present quantum optical technology, but still allow for perfect quantum reading, we evaluate the tradeoffs between the energy and the probability of error (failure) in ambiguous (unambiguous) quantum reading. It turns out that BAT states outperform ECS in any regime except for the case of high-energy discrimination of two beamsplitters with similar reflectivities.

Interference is observed when two independent Bose–Einstein condensates expand and overlap. This phenomenon is typical, in the sense that the overwhelming majority of wave functions of the condensates, uniformly sampled out of a suitable portion of the total Hilbert space, display interference with maximal visibility. We focus here on the phases of the condensates and their (pseudo) randomization, which naturally emerges when two-body scattering processes are considered. Relationship to typicality is discussed and analyzed.

We introduce the concept of cryptographic reduction, in analogy with a similar concept in computational complexity theory. In this framework, class A of crypto-protocols reduces to protocol class B in a scenario X, if for every instance a of A, there is an instance b of B and a secure transformation X that reproduces a given b, such that the security of b guarantees the security of a. Here we employ this reductive framework to study the relationship between security in quantum key distribution (QKD) and quantum secure direct communication (QSDC). We show that replacing the streaming of independent qubits in a QKD scheme by block encoding and transmission (permuting the order of particles block by block) of qubits, we can construct a QSDC scheme. This forms the basis for the block reduction from a QSDC class of protocols to a QKD class of protocols, whereby if the latter is secure, then so is the former. Conversely, given a secure QSDC protocol, we can of course construct a secure QKD scheme by transmitting a random key as the direct message. Then the QKD class of protocols is secure, assuming the security of the QSDC class which it is built from. We refer to this method of deduction of security for this class of QKD protocols, as key reduction. Finally, we propose an orthogonal-state-based deterministic key distribution (KD) protocol which is secure in some local post-quantum theories. Its security arises neither from geographic splitting of a code state nor from Heisenberg uncertainty, but from post-measurement disturbance.

The two-parameter Minkowski like inequality written for composite quantum system state is obtained for arbitrary Hermitian non-negative matrix with trace equal to unity. The inequality can be used as entropic and information inequality for density matrix of noncomposite finite quantum system, e.g. for a single qudit state. The analogs of strong subadditivity condition for the single qudit is discussed in context of obtained Minkowski like inequality.

The finite coupled bosonic model of reservoir introduced by Vasile et al. [Phys. Rev. A 89 (2014) 022109] to characterize non-Markovianity, is used to study the different dissipative behaviors of a harmonic oscillator coupled to it when it is in resonance, close to resonance or far detuned. We show that information and energy exchange between system and heat bath go hand in hand because phonons are the carriers of both: in resonance free propagation of excitations is achieved, and therefore pure dissipation, while when far detuned the system can only correlate with the first oscillator in the bath's chain, leading to almost unitary evolution. In the intermediate situation, we show the penetration of correlations and the formation of oscillatory (dressed state) behavior, which lies at the root of non-Markovianity.

We examine the features of parametric down-conversion for generating non-classical optical-terahertz biphoton fields. The calculations were performed for a second-order correlation function and noise reduction factor (NRF), which were selected as measures of non-classicality of the field states. NRF measurement schemes were found to be less advantageous. Overall system temperature at which non-classical effects are still observable has been estimated as about 10 K. The priority of the main complicating factors for the quantum-optical measurements in the terahertz range has been determined. Thus, the most important parameter is the temperature of the system, after that come the absorption losses at terahertz frequencies, and the parametric conversion efficiency has the lowest impact. Increasing the pump radiation power has been found to be inefficient for "noise" suppression in this case. The calculations performed were based on lithium niobate dispersion properties due to its outstanding nonlinear optical properties and because it is frequently used for optical-to-terahertz frequency conversion.

A simple quantum interaction is analyzed, where the paths of two superposed particles asymmetrically cross, while a detector set to detect an interaction between them remains silent. Despite this negative result, the particles' states leave no doubt that a peculiar interaction has occurred: One particle's momentum is changed while the other's remains unaffected, in apparent violation of momentum conservation. Revisiting the foundations of the standard quantum measurement process offers the resolution. Prior to the macroscopic recording of no interaction, a brief critical interval (CI) prevails, during which the particles and the detector's pointer form a subtle entanglement which immediately dissolves. It is this self-cancellation, henceforth "quantum oblivion (QO)," that lies at the basis of some well-known intriguing quantum effects. Such is interaction-free measurement (IFM)¹ and its more paradoxical variants like Hardy's Paradox² and the quantum liar paradox.³ Even the Aharonov–Bohm (AB) effect⁴ and weak measurement (WM)⁵ turn out to belong to this group. We next study interventions within the CI that produce some other peculiar effects. Finally, we discuss some of the conceptual issues involved. Under a greater time-resolution of the CI, some non-local phenomena turn out to be local. Momentum is conserved due to the quantum uncertainties inflicted by the particle–pointer interaction, which sets the experiment's final boundary condition.

We provide a statistical communication model for the phenomenon of quantum information evaporation from black holes (BHs). A BH behaves as a reflecting quantum channel in a very special regime, which allows for a receiver to perfectly recover the absorbed quantum information. The quantum channel of a perfectly reflecting (PR) BH is the probabilistically weighted sum of infinitely many qubit cloning channels. In this work, we reveal the statistical communication background of the information evaporation process of PR BHs. We show that the density of the cloned quantum particles in function of the PR BH's mass approximates a Chi-square distribution, while the stimulated emission process is characterized by zero-mean, circular symmetric complex Gaussian random variables. The results lead to the existence of Rayleigh random distributed coefficients in the probability density evolution, which confirms the presence of Rayleigh fading (a special type of random fluctuation) in the statistical communication model of BH information evaporation.

We experimentally study the violation of the CGLMP inequality for entangled 2-qubit and 2-qutrit states with different degrees of entanglement using numerically optimized measurement settings. The qudits are encoded and manipulated in the frequency spectrum of broadband energy-time entangled photons by taking into account a spatial light modulator (SLM). The latter allows to discretize the spectrum into bins. By controlling each frequency bin individually, the generation of maximally and non-maximally entangled qutrits is verified through quantum state tomography (QST).

We present an experimental investigation of the spatio-spectral coherence properties of bright twin-beam states (TWBs) as functions of different parameters, such as pump mean power and tuning angle of the employed nonlinear crystal. Our attention is mainly focused on the possible relations among the different quantities under investigation. Particular attention is devoted to the evolution of the number of spatio-spectral modes describing the radiation field, as it represents an interesting property to be controlled in view of possible applications to quantum state engineering protocols.

The Boson sampling problem consists in sampling from the output probability distribution of a bosonic Fock state, after it evolves through a linear interferometer. There is strong evidence that Boson sampling is computationally hard for classical computers, while it can be solved naturally by bosons. This has led it to draw increasing attention as a possible way to provide experimental evidence for the quantum computational supremacy. Nevertheless, the very complexity of the problem makes it hard to exclude the hypothesis that the experimental data are sampled from a different probability distribution. By exploiting integrated quantum photonics, we have carried out a set of three-photon Boson sampling experiments and analyzed the results using a Bayesian approach, showing that it represents a valid alternative to currently used methods. We adopt this approach to provide evidence that the experimental data correspond to genuine three-photon interference, validating the results against fully and partially-distinguishable photon hypotheses.