Path-entanglement microwave signals detecting method based on entanglement witness

Abstract

In recent years, the great progress of studying the quantum entanglement has been made. In the field of optics, the great success has been achieved in quantum entanglement theory and technology. Then researchers concentrate on the microwave frequency band whose frequency is lower than that of optical frequency band. The signal in the microwave frequency band has a longer wavelength, and it has the diffraction capability that the optical signal does not possess. Furthermore, it can spread further in complex environments. Now it is possible to experimentally produce squeezed state of microwave signals and spatially separated path-entangled microwave signals. It is an important issue to judge whether the microwave signals received through dual paths are in entanglement state. In this paper, we firstly introduce the method of using squeezed state of microwave and microwave beam splitter to prepare path-entangled microwave signals. Then we use entanglement witness method to detect entanglement. Through constructing the entanglement witness operator in path-entangled microwave signals, the entanglement of path-entangled microwave signals can be effectively detected. We decompose the expression of the continuous variables path-entangled microwave signals into a large number of 2 2 entangled superposition states, deduce an entangled witness operator of path-entangled microwave signals based on the principle of partial transpose criterion and entanglement witnessing, and prove that the entangled witness can be used to detect the path-entangled microwave signals. Finally, we propose a physical verification of path-entangled microwave signal entanglement. The verification can be realized as follows:firstly, we reverse the phase of a received quantum-state microwave signal by utilizing continuous variable controlled phase gate in a range of 0-, then we send two microwave signals into the two input ports of the microwave beam splitter, and we operate coincidence counting of microwave photons on the two output ports after entanglement microwave signals have passed through the microwave splitter. By analyzing the results of the whole process, we have the following conclusions:if the coincidence rate of two input signals is higher than that of non-entangled microwave signals under the same power, signals can be counted as entanglement. The proposed method can detect the entangled microwave signals more efficiently than the conventional methods, such as quantum state reconstruction, and thus reduce the detection and computational complexity. The entanglement of the two microwave quantum state signals can be observed directly by using this method. This paper provides a new idea for detecting the path-entangled microwave signals.