Qubit-loss-free fusion of W states

Abstract

With the assistance of weak cross-Kerr nonlinearities, we introduce an optical scheme to fuse two small-size polarization entangled photonic W states into a large-scale W state without qubit loss, i.e.,Wn+m state can be generated from an n-qubit W state and a m-qubit W state. To complete the fusion task, two polarization entanglement processes and one spatial entanglement process are applied. The fulfillments of the above processes are contributed by a cross-Kerr nonlinear interaction between the signal photons and a coherent state via Kerr media. We analyze the resource cost and the success probability of the scheme. There is no complete failure output in our fusion mechanism, and all the remaining states are recyclable. In addition, there is no need for any controlled quantum gate and any ancillary photon, so this fusion scheme may be implemented with current experimental techniques.