Continuous-variable Quantum States Research Articles

Continuous-Variable Quantum State Designs: Theory and Applications

Continuous-Variable Quantum State Designs: Theory and Applications

Emergent complex quantum networks in continuous-variables non-Gaussian states

We use complex network theory to study a class of photonic continuous variable quantum states that present both multipartite entanglement and non-Gaussian statistics. We consider the intermediate scale of several dozens of modes at which such systems are already hard to characterize. In particular, the states are built from an initial imprinted cluster state created via Gaussian entangling operations according to a complex network structure. We then engender non-Gaussian statistics via multiple photon subtraction operations acting on a single node. We replicate in the quantum regime some of the models that mimic real-world complex networks in order to test their structural properties under local operations. We go beyond the already known single-mode effects, by studying the emergent network of photon-number correlations via complex networks measures. We analytically prove that the imprinted network structure defines a vicinity of nodes, at a distance of four steps from the photon-subtracted node, in which the emergent network changes due to photon subtraction. We show numerically that the emergent structure is greatly influenced by the structure of the imprinted network. Indeed, while the mean and the variance of the degree and clustering distribution of the emergent network always increase, the higher moments of the distributions are governed by the specific structure of the imprinted network. Finally, we show that the behaviour of nearest neighbours of the subtraction node depends on how they are connected to each other in the imprinted structure.

Continuous-variable neural network quantum states and the quantum rotor model

We initiate the study of neural network quantum state algorithms for analyzing continuous-variable quantum systems in which the quantum degrees of freedom correspond to coordinates on a smooth manifold. A simple family of continuous-variable trial wavefunctions is introduced which naturally generalizes the restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM) wavefunction introduced for analyzing quantum spin systems. By virtue of its simplicity, the same variational Monte Carlo training algorithms that have been developed for ground state determination and time evolution of spin systems have natural analogues in the continuum. We offer a proof of principle demonstration in the context of ground state determination of a stoquastic quantum rotor Hamiltonian. Results are compared against those obtained from partial differential equation (PDE) based scalable eigensolvers. This study serves as a benchmark against which future investigation of continuous-variable neural quantum states can be compared, and points to the need to consider deep network architectures and more sophisticated training algorithms.

Manipulation of continuous variable orbital angular momentum squeezing and entanglement by pump shaping.

Spatially structured quantum states, such as orbital angular momentum (OAM) squeezing and entanglement, is currently a popular topic in quantum optics. The method of generating and manipulating spatial quantum states on demand needs to be explored. In this paper, we generated OAM mode squeezed states of -5.4 dB for the L G0+1 mode and -5.3 dB for the L G0-1 mode directly by an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) for the first time. Additionally, we demonstrated that the OAM mode squeezed and entangled states were respectively generated by manipulating the nonlinear process of the OPO by controlling the relative phase of two beams of different modes, thus making two different spatial multimode pump beams. We characterized the Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) entangled states by indirectly measuring the squeezing for the H G 10(45∘) mode and H G 10(135∘) mode, and directly measuring the entanglement between the L G0+1 and L G0-1 modes. The effective manipulation of the OAM quantum state provides a novel insight into the continuous variable quantum state generation and construction on demand for high-dimensional quantum information and quantum metrology.

Simple, Reliable, and Noise-Resilient Continuous-Variable Quantum State Tomography with Convex Optimization

Precise reconstruction of unknown quantum states from measurement data, a process commonly called quantum state tomography, is a crucial component in the development of quantum information processing technologies. Many different tomography methods have been proposed over the years. Maximum likelihood estimation is a prominent example, being the most popular method for a long period of time. Recently, more advanced neural network methods have started to emerge. Here, we go back to basics and present a method for continuous variable state reconstruction that is both conceptually and practically simple, based on convex optimization. Convex optimization has been used for process tomography and qubit state tomography, but seems to have been overlooked for continuous variable quantum state tomography. We demonstrate high-fidelity reconstruction of an underlying state from data corrupted by thermal noise and imperfect detection, for both homodyne and heterodyne measurements. A major advantage over other methods is that convex optimization algorithms are guaranteed to converge to the optimal solution.

Taming numerical errors in simulations of continuous variable non-Gaussian state preparation

Numerical simulation of continuous variable quantum state preparation is a necessary tool for optimization of existing quantum information processing protocols. A powerful instrument for such simulation is the numerical computation in the Fock state representation. It unavoidably uses an approximation of the infinite-dimensional Fock space by finite complex vector spaces implementable with classical digital computers. In this approximation we analyze the accuracy of several currently available methods for computation of the truncated coherent displacement operator. To overcome their limitations we propose an alternative with improved accuracy based on the standard matrix exponential. We then employ the method in analysis of non-Gaussian state preparation scheme based on coherent displacement of a two mode squeezed vacuum with subsequent photon counting measurement. We compare different detection mechanisms, including avalanche photodiodes, their cascades, and photon number resolving detectors in the context of engineering non-linearly squeezed cubic states and construction of qubit-like superpositions between vacuum and single photon states.

Continuous-variable quantum state tomography of photoelectrons

We propose a continuous variable quantum state tomography protocol of electrons which result from the ionization of atoms or molecules by the absorption of extreme ultraviolet light pulses. Our protocol is benchmarked against a direct calculation of the quantum state of photoelectrons ejected from helium and argon in the vicinity of a Fano resonance. In the latter case, we furthermore distill ion-photoelectron entanglement due to spin-orbit splitting. This opens routes toward the investigation of quantum coherence and entanglement properties on the ultrafast timescale.

Estimating Quantum Mutual Information of Continuous-Variable Quantum States by Measuring Purity and Covariance Matrix.

We derive accessible upper and lower bounds for continuous-variable (CV) quantum states on quantum mutual information. The derivations are based on the observation that some functions of purities bound the difference between quantum mutual information of a quantum state and its Gaussian reference. The bounds are efficiently obtainable by measuring purities and the covariance matrix without multimode quantum state reconstruction. We extend our approach to the upper and lower bounds for the quantum total correlation of CV multimode quantum states. Furthermore, we investigate the relations of the bounds for the quantum mutual information with the bounds for the quantum conditional entropy.

Teleportation of discrete-variable qubits via continuous-variable lossy channels

The Continuous-Variable (CV) quantum state of light allows for the teleportation of a Discrete-Variable (DV) photonic qubit. Such an operation is useful in the realm of hybrid quantum networks. However, it is known that the teleportation of a DV qubit via a Gaussian CV resource channel is severely limited under channel loss, with a teleportation fidelity beyond the classical limit unattainable for losses exceeding a small threshold of 0.5 dB. In this work, we present a new non-deterministic teleportation protocol that combines a Gaussian CV resource channel with a modified form of the Bell State Measurement that accommodates a DV-qubit fidelity beyond the classical limit for channel losses up to 20~dB. Beyond this orders of magnitude improvement, we also show how the use of non-Gaussian operations on the CV resource channel can lead to a DV-qubit fidelity approaching unity for any channel loss.

Selective quantum state tomography for continuous-variable systems

We present a protocol that allows the estimation of any density matrix element for continuous-variable quantum states, without resorting to the complete reconstruction of the full density matrix. The algorithm adaptatively discretizes the state and then, by resorting to controlled squeezing and translation operations, which are the main requirements for this algorithm, measures the density matrix element value. Furthermore, we show how this method can be used to achieve full quantum state tomography for continuous-variable quantum systems, alongside numerical simulations.

Heralded Multiplexed High-Efficiency Cascaded Source of Dual-Rail Entangled Photon Pairs Using Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion

Deterministic sources of high-fidelity entangled qubit pairs encoded in the dual-rail photonic basis, i.e., presence of a single photon in one of two orthogonal modes, are a key enabling technology of many applications of quantum information processing, including high-rate high-fidelity quantum communications over long distances. The most popular and mature sources of such photonic entanglement, e.g., those that leverage spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) or spontaneous four-wave mixing (sFWM), generate an entangled (so-called, continuous-variable) quantum state that contains contributions from high-order photon terms that lie outside the span of the dual-rail basis, which is detrimental to most applications. One often uses low pump power to mitigate the effects of those high-order terms. However that reduces the pair generation rate, and the source becomes inherently probabilistic. We investigate a cascaded source that performs a linear-optical entanglement swap between two SPDC sources, to generate a heralded photonic entangled state that has a higher fidelity (to the ideal Bell state) compared to a free-running SPDC source. Further, with the Bell swap providing a heralding trigger, we show how to build a multiplexed source, which despite reasonable switching losses and detector loss and noise, yields a Fidelity versus Success Probability trade-off of a high-efficiency source of high-fidelity dual-rail photonic entanglement. We find however that there is a threshold of $1.5$ dB of loss per switch, beyond which multiplexing hurts the Fidelity versus Success Probability trade-off.

Quantum kernels with Gaussian state encoding for machine learning

Kernel methods are powerful for machine learning, as they can represent data in feature spaces that similarities between samples may be faithfully captured. Recently, it is realized that quantum-enhanced machine learning is closely related to kernel methods, where the exponentially large Hilbert space can be a feature space more expressive than classical ones. Here we investigate quantum kernel methods of encoding data into continuous-variable quantum states, with two newly introduced quantum kernels named squeezing amplitude kernel and coherent phase kernel from Gaussian state encoding, in which data is encoded as either in the amplitude or the phase. The kernels can be calculated on a quantum computer and then are combined with classical machine learning, e.g. support vector machine, for training and predicting tasks. Their comparisons with other classical kernels are also addressed. Lastly, we briefly discuss the universal approximation property of continuous-variable quantum kernels.

Universal Unitary Transfer of Continuous-Variable Quantum States into a Few Qubits.

We present a protocol for transferring arbitrary continuous-variable quantum states into a few discrete-variable qubits and back. The protocol is deterministic and utilizes only two-mode Rabi-type interactions that are readily available in trapped-ion and superconducting circuit platforms. The inevitable errors caused by transferring an infinite-dimensional state into a finite-dimensional register are suppressed exponentially with the number of qubits. Furthermore, the encoded states exhibit robustness against noise, such as dephasing and amplitude damping, acting on the qubits. Our protocol thus provides a powerful and flexible tool for discrete-continuous hybrid quantum systems.

Mutually testing source-device-independent quantum random number generator

Quantum random numbers have an incomparable advantage over pseudo-random numbers since randomness originates from intrinsic property of quantum mechanics. The generation rate and the security of quantum random numbers are two significant indicators of a quantum random number generator (QRNG) for practical applications. Here we propose a mutually testing source-device-independent QRNG by simultaneously measuring a pair of conjugate quadratures from two separate parts of an untrusted continuous-variable quantum state. The amounts of randomness of the quadratures can be mutually estimated by each other via entropic uncertainty principle. Instead of randomly toggling between the conjugate quadratures of one state for collecting different types of data, two quadratures can generate check data and raw bits simultaneously and continuously in this mutually testing manner, which enhances the equivalent generation rate of private random bits to around 6 Gbit/s with a 7.5 mW laser beam. Moreover, the overall security is also improved by adjusting the conditional min-entropy in real time according to the continually monitored fluctuations of the local oscillator and the randomly measured electronic noise of homodyne detectors.

Efficient verification of Boson Sampling

The demonstration of quantum speedup, also known as quantum computational supremacy, that is the ability of quantum computers to outperform dramatically their classical counterparts, is an important milestone in the field of quantum computing. While quantum speedup experiments are gradually escaping the regime of classical simulation, they still lack efficient verification protocols and rely on partial validation. Here we derive an efficient protocol for verifying with single-mode Gaussian measurements the output states of a large class of continuous-variable quantum circuits demonstrating quantum speedup, including Boson Sampling experiments, thus enabling a convincing demonstration of quantum speedup with photonic computing. Beyond the quantum speedup milestone, our results also enable the efficient and reliable certification of a large class of intractable continuous-variable multimode quantum states.

Experimental demonstration of confidential communication with quantum security monitoring

Security issues and attack management of optical communication have come increasingly important. Quantum techniques are explored to secure or protect classical communication. In this paper, we present a method for in-service optical physical layer security monitoring that has vacuum-noise level sensitivity without classical security loopholes. This quantum-based method of eavesdropping detection, similar to that used in conventional pilot tone systems, is achieved by sending quantum signals, here comprised of continuous variable quantum states, i.e. weak coherent states modulated at the quantum level. An experimental demonstration of attack detection using the technique was presented for an ideal fibre tapping attack that taps 1% of the ongoing light in a 10 dB channel, and also an ideal correlated jamming attack in the same channel that maintains the light power with excess noise increased by 0.5 shot noise unit. The quantum monitoring system monitors suspicious changes in the quantum signal with the help of advanced data processing algorithms. In addition, unlike the CV-QKD system which is very sensitive to channel excess noise and receiver system noise, the quantum monitoring is potentially more compatible with current optical infrastructure, as it lowers the system requirements and potentially allows much higher classical data rate communication with links length up to 100 s km.

Efficient verification of entangled continuous-variable quantum states with local measurements

Continuous-variable quantum states are of particular importance in various quantum information processing tasks including quantum communication and quantum sensing. However, a bottleneck has emerged with the fast increasing in size of the quantum systems which severely hinders their efficient characterization. In this work, we establish a systematic framework for verifying entangled continuous-variable quantum states by employing local measurements only. Our protocol is able to achieve the unconditionally high verification efficiency which is quadratically better than quantum tomography as well as other nontomographic methods. Specifically, we demonstrate the power of our protocol by showing the efficient verification of entangled two-mode and multimode coherent states with local measurements.

Direct measurement of density-matrix elements using a phase-shifting technique

A direct measurement protocol allows reconstructing specific elements of the density matrix of a quantum state without using quantum state tomography. However, the direct measurement protocols to date are primarily based on weak or strong measurements with an ancillary pointer, which interacts with the investigated system to extract information about the specified elements. Here, we present a direct measurement scheme based on phase-shifting operations which do not need ancillary pointers. In this method, estimates of at most six expectation values of projective observables suffice to determine any specific element of an unknown quantum density matrix. A concrete quantum circuit to implement this direct measurement protocol for multiqubit states is provided, which is composed of just single-qubit gates and two multiqubit controlled-phase gates. This scheme is also extended for the direct measurement of the density matrix of continuous-variable quantum states. Our method can be used in quantum information applications where only partial information about the quantum state needs to be extracted, for example, problems such as entanglement witnessing, fidelity estimation of quantum systems, and quantum coherence estimation.

Classical simulation of Gaussian quantum circuits with non-Gaussian input states

We consider Gaussian quantum circuits supplemented with non-Gaussian input states and derive sufficient conditions for efficient classical strong simulation of these circuits. In particular, we generalise the stellar representation of continuous-variable quantum states to the multimode setting and relate the stellar rank of the input non-Gaussian states, a recently introduced measure of non-Gaussianity, to the cost of evaluating classically the output probability densities of these circuits. Our results have consequences for the strong simulability of a large class of near-term continuous-variable quantum circuits.

Efficient Verification of Continuous-Variable Quantum States and Devices without Assuming Identical and Independent Operations.

Continuous-variable quantum information, encoded into infinite-dimensional quantum systems, is a promising platform for the realization of many quantum information protocols, including quantum computation, quantum metrology, quantum cryptography, and quantum communication. To successfully demonstrate these protocols, an essential step is the certification of multimode continuous-variable quantum states and quantum devices. This problem is well studied under the assumption that multiple uses of the same device result in identical and independently distributed (i.i.d.) operations. However, in realistic scenarios, identical and independent state preparation and calls to the quantum devices cannot be generally guaranteed. Important instances include adversarial scenarios and instances of time-dependent and correlated noise. In this Letter, we propose the first set of reliable protocols for verifying multimode continuous-variable entangled states and devices in these non-i.i.d scenarios. Although not fully universal, these protocols are applicable to Gaussian quantum states, non-Gaussian hypergraph states, as well as amplification, attenuation, and purification of noisy coherent states.