Nonlocal quantum state interferography

Abstract

Quantum state interferography has recently been proposed as an interference-based technique for the measurement of the general qubit and pure qudit states [Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 123601 (2020)]. This interferometric method exploits the relationship between the off-diagonal elements of the density matrix and the expectation values of non-Hermitian spin ladder operators. The extension of this method to a composite system is however nontrivial, as it involves the measurement of both single-photon and nonlocal multiphoton interferences. In this work, we present the theoretical analysis of the two-photon quantum state interferography of an arbitrary quantum state. We show that complete state information could in principle be obtained with two measurement settings and by recording six interferograms, using a single-photon sensitive imaging device. We then experimentally demonstrate two-photon nonlocal quantum state interferography of polarization-entangled photon pairs generated with type-I spontaneous parametric down conversion. Quantum state interferography of all four Bell states is performed. An upper bound on the separability of the bipartite states is established in terms of the visibility, phase average intensity, and phase shift of the interference patterns related to the antidiagonal elements of the matrix. Each of the four Bell states can be distinguished by the violation of these bounds uniquely.