Entanglement Of Identical Particles Research Articles

Polarization–orbital angular momentum duality assisted entanglement observation for indistinguishable photons

Duality in the entanglement of identical particles manifests that entanglement in only one variable can be revealed at a time. We demonstrate this using polarization and orbital angular momentum (OAM) variables of indistinguishable photons generated from parametric down-conversion. We show polarization entanglement by sorting photons in even and odd OAM basis, while sorting them in two orthogonal polarization modes reveals the OAM entanglement. Indistinguishable photons entangled in two variables could find applications in robust quantum communication, remote entanglement generation and distributed quantum sensing.

Entangling bosons through particle indistinguishability and spatial overlap.

Particle identity and entanglement are two fundamental quantum properties that work as major resources for various quantum information tasks. However, it is still a challenging problem to understand the correlation of the two properties in the same system. While recent theoretical studies have shown that the spatial overlap between identical particles is necessary for nontrivial entanglement, the exact role of particle indistinguishability in the entanglement of identical particles has never been analyzed quantitatively before. Here, we theoretically and experimentally investigate the behavior of entanglement between two bosons as spatial overlap and indistinguishability simultaneously vary. The theoretical computation of entanglement for generic two bosons with pseudospins is verified experimentally in a photonic system. Our results show that the amount of entanglement is a monotonically increasing function of both quantities. We expect that our work provides an insight into deciphering the role of the entanglement in quantum networks that consist of identical particles.

Entanglement between Identical Particles Is a Useful and Consistent Resource

The existence of fundamentally identical particles represents a foundational distinction between classical and quantum mechanics. Due to their exchange symmetry, identical particles can appear to be entangled -- another uniquely quantum phenomenon with far-reaching practical implications. However, a long-standing debate has questioned whether identical particle entanglement is physical or merely a mathematical artefact. In this work, we provide such particle entanglement with a consistent theoretical description as a quantum resource in processes frequently encountered in optical and cold atomic systems. This leads to a plethora of applications of immediate practical impact. On one hand, we show that the metrological advantage for estimating phase shifts in systems of identical bosons amounts to a measure of their particle entanglement, with a clearcut operational meaning. On the other hand, we demonstrate in general terms that particle entanglement is the property resulting in directly usable mode entanglement when distributed to separated parties, with particle conservation laws in play. Application of our tools to an experimental implementation with Bose-Einstein condensates leads to the first quantitative estimation of identical particle entanglement. Further connections are revealed between particle entanglement and other resources such as optical nonclassicality and quantum coherence. Overall, this work marks a resolutive step in the ongoing debate by delivering a unifying conceptual and practical understanding of entanglement between identical particles.

Entanglement of identical particles and coherence in the first quantization language

We suggest a formalism to illustrate the entanglement of identical particles in the first quantization language (1QL). Our 1QL formalism enables one to exploit all the well-established quantum information tools to understand the indistinguishable ones, including the reduced density matrix and familiar entanglement measures. The rigorous quantitative relation between the amount of entanglement and the spatial coherence of particles is possible in this formalism. Our entanglement detection process is a generalization of the entanglement extraction protocol for identical particles with mode splitting proposed by Killoran et al. (2014).

Remarks on Entanglement and Identical Particles

We argue that in the case of identical particles the most natural identification of separability, that is of absence of non-classical correlations, is via the factorization of mean values of commuting observables. It thus follows that separability and entanglement depend both on the state and on the choice of observables and are not absolute notions. We compare this point of view with a recent novel approach to the entanglement of identical particles, which allows for the definition of an entanglement entropy from a suitably defined reduced particle density matrix, without the need of labelling the system constituents. We contrast this figure of merit with the aforementioned lack of an absolute notion of entanglement by considering few paradigmatic examples.

Quantum entanglement of identical particles by standard information-theoretic notions.

Quantum entanglement of identical particles is essential in quantum information theory. Yet, its correct determination remains an open issue hindering the general understanding and exploitation of many-particle systems. Operator-based methods have been developed that attempt to overcome the issue. Here we introduce a state-based method which, as second quantization, does not label identical particles and presents conceptual and technical advances compared to the previous ones. It establishes the quantitative role played by arbitrary wave function overlaps, local measurements and particle nature (bosons or fermions) in assessing entanglement by notions commonly used in quantum information theory for distinguishable particles, like partial trace. Our approach furthermore shows that bringing identical particles into the same spatial location functions as an entangling gate, providing fundamental theoretical support to recent experimental observations with ultracold atoms. These results pave the way to set and interpret experiments for utilizing quantum correlations in realistic scenarios where overlap of particles can count, as in Bose-Einstein condensates, quantum dots and biological molecular aggregates.

Bell measurements as a witness of a dualism in entanglement

We show how the property of dualism, which can exist in the entanglement of identical particles, can be tested in the usual photonic Bell measurement apparatus with minor modifications. Two different sets of coincidence measurements on the same experimental setup consisting of a Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer demonstrate how the same two-photon state can emerge entangled in the polarization or the momentum degree of freedom depending on the dynamical variables used for labeling the particles. Our experiment demonstrates how the same source can be used as both a polarization entangled state as well as a dichotomic momentum entangled state shared between distant users Alice and Bob in accordance with which sets of detectors they access. When the particles become distinguishable by letting the information about one of the variables be imprinted in yet another (possibly inaccessible) system or degree of freedom, the feature of dualism is expected to vanish. We verify this feature by polarization decoherence (polarization information in the environment) or arrival time difference, which both respectively destroy one of the dual forms of entanglement.

Experimental observation of entanglement duality for identical particles

It was shown recently that entanglement of identical particles has a feature called dualism (Bose and Home 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 110 140404), which is fundamentally connected with quantum indistinguishability. Here we report an experiment that observes the entanglement duality for the first time with two identical photons, which manifest polarization entanglement when labeled by different paths or path entanglement when labeled by polarization states. By adjusting the mismatch in frequency or arrival time of the entangled photons, we tune the photon indistinguishability from the quantum to the classical limit and observe that the entanglement duality disappears under the emergence of classical distinguishability, confirming it as a characteristic feature of quantum indistinguishable particles.

Algebraic approach to entanglement and entropy

We present a general approach to quantum entanglement and entropy that is based on algebras of observables and states thereon. In contrast to more standard treatments, Hilbert space is an emergent concept, appearing as a representation space of the observable algebra, once a state is chosen. In this approach, which is based on the Gelfand-Naimark-Segal construction, the study of subsystems becomes particularly clear. We explicitly show how the problems associated with partial trace for the study of entanglement of identical particles are readily overcome. In particular, a suitable entanglement measure is proposed, that can be applied to systems of particles obeying Fermi, Bose, para- and even braid group statistics. The generality of the method is also illustrated by the study of time evolution of subsystems emerging from restriction to subalgebras. Also, problems related to anomalies and quantum epistemology are discussed.

Entanglement of identical particles and the detection process

AbstractWe introduce detector‐level entanglement, a unified entanglement concept for identical particles that takes into account the possible deletion of many‐particle which‐way information through the detection process. The concept implies a measure for the effective indistinguishability of the particles, which is controlled by the measurement setup and which quantifies the extent to which the (anti‐)symmetrization of the wave‐function impacts on physical observables. Initially indistinguishable particles can gain or loose entanglement on their transition to distinguishability, and their quantum statistical behavior depends on their initial entanglement. Our results show that entanglement cannot be attributed to a state of identical particles alone, but that the detection process has to be incorporated in the analysis.

Useful entanglement from the Pauli principle

We address the question whether identical-particle entanglement is a useful resource for quantum information processing. We answer this question positively by reporting a scheme to create entanglement using semiconductor quantum wells. The Pauli exclusion principle forces quantum correlations between the spins of two independent fermions in the conduction band. Selective electron-hole recombination then transfers this entanglement to the polarization of emitted photons, which can subsequently be used for quantum information tasks.

Increasing identical particle entanglement by fuzzy measurements

We investigate the effects of fuzzy measurements on spin entanglement for identical particles, both fermions and bosons. We first consider an ideal measurement apparatus and define operators that detect the symmetry of the spatial and spin part of the density matrix as a function of particle distance. Then, moving on to realistic devices that can only detect the position of the particle to within a certain spread, it was surprisingly found that the entanglement between particles increases with the broadening of detection.

ENTANGLEMENT OF IDENTICAL PARTICLES AND REFERENCE PHASE UNCERTAINTY

We have recently introduced a measure of the bipartite entanglement of identical particles, E P , based on the principle that entanglement should be accessible for use as a resource in quantum information processing. We show here that particle entanglement is limited by the lack of a reference phase shared by the two parties, and that the entanglement is constrained to reference-phase invariant subspaces. The super-additivity of E P results from the fact that this constraint is weaker for combined systems. A shared reference phase can only be established by transferring particles between the parties, that is, with additional nonlocal resources. We show how this nonlocal operation can increase the particle entanglement.