Direct Measurement of Nonlinear Properties of Bipartite Quantum States

Abstract

Nonlinear properties of quantum states, such as entropy or entanglement, quantify important physical resources and are frequently used in quantum information science. They are usually calculated from a full description of a quantum state, even though they depend only on a small number of parameters that specify the state. Here we extract a nonlocal and a nonlinear quantity, namely the Renyi entropy, from local measurements on two pairs of polarization entangled photons. We also introduce a "phase marking" technique which allows to select uncorrupted outcomes even with nondeterministic sources of entangled photons. We use our experimental data to demonstrate the violation of entropic inequalities. They are examples of a nonlinear entanglement witness and their power exceeds all linear tests for quantum entanglement based on all possible Bell-CHSH inequalities.