Complete hyperentangled Bell state analysis assisted by hyperentanglement

Abstract

We present a simple scheme for the complete analysis of hyperentangled Bell states in polarization and spatial-mode degrees of freedom (DOFs) assisted by time-bin–frequency hyperentanglement. In previous schemes of distinguishing the 16 hyperentangled Bell states, many non-linear interaction systems are widely used to construct a quantum gate, such as cross-Kerr non-linearity, quantum-dot spin in an optical microcavity and nitrogen-vacancy centers in a resonator. In our scheme, we utilize the time-bin and frequency DOFs of a photon system as the auxiliary DOFs to analyze polarization–spatial-mode hyperentangled Bell states, and the distinguishing principle is quite different from the former schemes that use the non-linear interactions. As the manipulation of time-bin and frequency DOFs of photons is efficient and feasible with current technology, this scheme will be useful for high-capacity quantum information processing based on hyperentanglement.