arXiv subjects

Prajit Dhara

Publications and source records attributed to Prajit Dhara.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Non-Markovian delay-assisted sensing with waveguide-coupled quantum emitters

We show that in a minimal setup of two waveguide-coupled quantum emitters, separated by long distances and subject to an external field, time-delayed feedback can be a resource for sensing field gradients. While the field gradient induces a detuning between the emitters; the large interatomic separations render the system dynamics non-Markovian. We show that the quantum Fisher information (QFI) for estimating the detuning parameter, and thereby the field gradient, is enhanced in the presence of non-Markovian delay. Such an enhancement can be attributed to the formation of atom-photon quasi-bound states that enable the field to interact with the emitters for longer times, thereby gaining more information about their relative detunings. Additionally, in the presence of delay, the interaction between the emitters is mediated via multiple spectral modes of the field, further enhancing the sensing capabilities of the system. Our results establish non-Markovian time-delayed feedback and multimode reservoirs as a resource for distributed quantum sensing with waveguide-coupled quantum emitters.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Optimum-Transmission Free-Space Optical Communications

Slepian developed the Prolate Spheroidal Wavefunction (PSW) spatial-mode basis, which forms the normal modes of the Fresnel-propagation kernel of a free-space optical communications channel bookended by hard-circular apertures. The zero-th order PSW mode has the highest power-transfer eigenvalue, exciting which on the transmitter side therefore maximizes the transmissivity for single-spatial-mode communications. We show that the transmissivity performance of this fundamental PSW mode can be obtained by an aperture-truncated Gaussian beam of an optimized beam waist, despite the two mode shapes deviating from one another in the near-field regime.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2025

Scheduling in Quantum Satellite Networks: Fairness and Performance Optimization

Quantum satellite networks offer a promising solution for achieving long-distance quantum communication by enabling entanglement distribution across global scales. This work formulates and solves the quantum satellite network scheduling problem by optimizing satellite-to-ground station pair assignments under realistic system and environmental constraints. Our framework accounts for limited satellite and ground station resources, fairness, entanglement fidelity thresholds, and real world non-idealities including atmospheric losses, weather and background noise. In addition, we incorporate the complexities of multi-satellite relays enabled via inter-satellite links. We propose an integer linear programming (ILP) based optimization framework that supports multiple scheduling objectives, allowing us to analyze tradeoffs between maximizing total entanglement distribution rate and ensuring fairness across ground station pairs. Our framework can also be used as a benchmark tool to measure the performance of other potential transmission scheduling policies.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Full-stack Physics-level model of cascaded entanglement links

While the last few decades have seen a proliferation of experimental demonstrations of entanglement sources, practicality of deployment has been a secondary concern. Recently, the ZALM source was introduced, as a well-engineered functional device, easily integrated within a complete networking system. It addresses numerous concerns which make typical academic demonstrations less practical: reliable heralding signals, multiplexing across multiple dimensions, and efficient use of input power. We present a stack of tools for modeling mode-by-mode a ZALM source under realistic conditions, in isolation or as a part of a complete network testbed. Our modeling formalism builds upon a hybrid Gaussian and non-Gaussian representation, providing a flexible tradeoff between performance and accuracy, while also greatly simplifying the exact calculation of otherwise expensive scalar figures of merit. This toolkit, implemented in the Python package called "genqo", is integrated within the QuantumSavory full-stack simulator and the QuantumSymbolics computer algebra system. We use this software stack to demonstrate a number of complete networking protocols built upon the ZALM source.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Coherent State Assisted Entanglement Generation Between Quantum Memories

Generating entanglement deterministically at a capacity-approaching rate is critical for next-generation quantum networks. We propose weak-coherent-state-assisted protocols that can generate entanglement near-deterministically between reflective-cavity-based quantum memories at a success rate that exceeds the 50\% limit associated with single-photon-mediated schemes. The most pronounced benefit is shown in the low-channel-loss regime and persists even with moderate noise. We extend our protocols to entangle an array of memories in a GHZ state, and infer that it yields an exponential speed-up compared to previous single-photon-based protocols.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Blockwise Post-processing in Satellite-based Quantum Key Distribution

Free-space satellite communication has significantly lower photon loss than terrestrial communication via optical fibers. Satellite-based quantum key distribution (QKD) leverages this advantage and provides a promising direction in achieving long-distance QKD. While the technological feasibility of satellite-based QKD has been demonstrated experimentally, optimizing the key rate remains a significant challenge. In this paper, we argue that improving classical post-processing is an important direction in increasing key rate in satellite-based QKD, while it can also be easily incorporated in existing satellite systems. In particular, we explore one direction, blockwise post-processing, to address highly dynamic satellite channel conditions due to various environmental factors. This blockwise strategy divides the raw key bits into individual blocks that have similar noise characteristics, and processes them independently, in contrast to traditional non-blockwise strategy that treats all the raw key bits as a whole. Using a case study, we discuss the choice of blocks in blockwise strategy, and show that blockwise strategy can significantly outperform non-blockwise strategy. Our study demonstrates the importance of post-processing in satellite QKD systems, and presents several open problems in this direction.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Interfacing Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill Qubits to Quantum Memories

Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) states have been demonstrated to pose significant advantages when utilized for fault-tolerant all optical continuous-variable quantum computing as well as for quantum communications links for entanglement distribution. However interfacing these systems to long-lived solid-state quantum memories has remained an open problem. Here we propose an interface between quantum memories and GKP qubit states based on a cavity-mediated controlled displacement gate. We characterize the quality of memory-GKP entanglement as a function of cavity parameters suggesting optimal regimes of operation for high-quality state transfer between either qubit states. We further extend this protocol to demonstrate the creation of GKP cluster states by avoiding the requirement of ancillary optical quadrature-squeezed light. Utilizing post-selected entanglement swapping operations for GKP qubits, we demonstrate the utility of our protocol for high-rate entanglement generation between quantum memories. Extensions and derivatives of our proposal could enable a wide variety of applications by utilizing the operational trade-offs for qubits encoded in memory and in the GKP basis.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Entangling Quantum Memories at Channel Capacity

Entangling quantum memories, mediated by optical-frequency or microwave channels, at high rates and fidelities is key for linking qubits across short and long ranges. All well-known protocols encode up to one qubit per optical mode, hence entangling one pair of memory qubits per transmitted mode over the channel, with probability $\eta$, the channel's transmissivity. The rate is proportional to $\eta$ ideal Bell states (ebits) per mode. The quantum capacity, $C(\eta) = -\log_2(1-{\eta})$ ebits per mode, which $\approx 1.44\eta$ for high loss, i.e., $\eta \ll 1$, thereby making these schemes near rate-optimal. However, $C(\eta) \to \infty$ as $\eta \to 1$, making the known schemes highly rate-suboptimal for shorter ranges. We show that a cavity-assisted memory-photon interface can be used to entangle matter memories with Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) photonic qudits, which along with dual-homodyne entanglement swaps that retain analog information, enables entangling memories at capacity-approaching rates at low loss. We benefit from loss resilience of GKP qudits, and their ability to encode multiple qubits in one mode. Our memory-photon interface further supports the preparation of needed ancilla GKP qudits. We expect our result to spur research in low-loss high-cooperativity cavity-coupled qubits with high-efficiency optical coupling, and demonstrations of high-rate short-range quantum links.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Blockwise Key Distillation in Satellite-based Quantum Key Distribution

Free-space satellite communication has significantly lower photon loss than terrestrial communication via optical fibers. Satellite-based quantum key distribution (QKD) leverages this advantage and provides a promising direction in achieving long-distance inter-continental QKD. Satellite channels, however, can be highly dynamic due to various environmental factors and time-of-the-day effects, leading to heterogeneous noises over time. In this paper, we compare two key distillation techniques for satellite-based QKD. One is the traditional {\em non-blockwise} strategy that treats all the signals as a whole; the other is a {\em blockwise} strategy that divides the signals into individual blocks that have similar noise characteristics and processes them independently. Through extensive simulation in a wide range of settings, we show trends in optimal parameter choices and when one strategy provides better key generation rates than the other. Our results show that the blockwise strategy can lead to up to $5\%$ key rate improvement (leading to on average $1.9\times10^{7}$ more key bits per day) when considering two types of blocks, i.e., for nighttime and daytime, respectively. The blockwise strategy only requires changes in the classical post-processing stage of QKD and can be easily deployed in existing satellite systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Phonon-Induced Decoherence in Color-Center Qubits

Electron spin states of solid-state defects such as Nitrogen- and Silicon-vacancy {\em color centers} in diamond are a leading quantum-memory candidate for quantum communications and computing. Via open-quantum-systems modeling of spin-phonon coupling -- the major contributor of decoherence -- at a given temperature, we derive the time dynamics of the density operator of an electron-spin qubit. We use our model to corroborate experimentally-measured decoherence rates. We further derive the temporal decay of distillable entanglement in spin-spin entangled states heralded via photonic Bell-state measurements. Extensions of our model to include other decoherence mechanisms, e.g., undesired hyperfine couplings to the neighboring nuclear-spin environment, will pave the way to a rigorous predictive model for engineering artificial-atom qubits with desirable properties.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Entangling Quantum Memories via Heralded Photonic Bell Measurement

A common way to entangle quantum memories is via photonic entanglement swaps. Each of two memories, connected by an optical channel, emits a photonic qubit entangled with itself, and the photonic qubits undergo an entanglement swap on a beamsplitter in the middle of the channel. We compare two choices of encoding of the photonic qubit: single rail and dual rail. At low channel loss the dual-rail scheme outperforms the single rail scheme. However, as expected, the high-loss rate asymptote for the dual rail scheme scales quadratically worse with loss compared with single rail. Considering the following non-idealities: imperfect mode matching at the swap, carrier-phase mismatch across the interfered photonic qubits, and detector excess noise, we evaluate the density operator of the heralded two-qubit entangled state. We calculate a lower bound on its distillable entanglement per copy, and its Fidelity (with the ideal Bell state). For both schemes, imperfect swap-visibility results in a constant-factor decrease in the rate, while excess noise results in a dropoff of distillable entanglement beyond a certain total channel loss threshold, to zero. Despite the single-rail scheme's better rate-loss scaling, it is more severely affected by excess noise. The single-rail scheme is adversely affected by stochastic carrier-phase mismatch, which does not affect the dual-rail scheme. We study entanglement distillation on the heralded noisy entangled states for both methods, and outline a suite of quantum networking studies that our work could incite.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Exploring the possibility of a complex-valued non-Gaussianity measure for quantum states of light

We consider a quantity that is the differential relative entropy between a generic Wigner function and a Gaussian one. We prove that said quantity is minimized with respect to its Gaussian argument, if both Wigner functions in the argument of the Wigner differential entropy have the same first and second moments, i.e., if the Gaussian argument is the Gaussian associate of the other, generic Wigner function. Therefore, we introduce the differential relative entropy between any Wigner function and its Gaussian associate and we examine its potential as a non-Gaussianity measure. We prove that said quantity is faithful, invariant under Gaussian unitary operations, and find a sufficient condition on its monotonic behavior under Gaussian channels. We provide numerical results supporting aforesaid condition. The proposed, phase-space based non-Gaussianity measure is complex-valued, with its imaginary part possessing the physical meaning of the negative volume of the Wigner function. At the same time, the real part of this measure provides an extra layer of information, rendering the complex-valued quantity a measure of non-Gaussianity, instead of a quantity pertaining only to the negativity of the Wigner function. We examine the usefulness of our measure to non-Gaussian quantum state engineering with partial measurements.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Zero-Added-Loss Entangled Photon Multiplexing for Ground- and Space-Based Quantum Networks

We propose a scheme for optical entanglement distribution in quantum networks based on a quasi-deterministic entangled photon pair source. By combining heralded photonic Bell pair generation with spectral mode conversion to interface with quantum memories, the scheme eliminates switching losses due to multiplexing. We analyze this `zero-added-loss multiplexing' (ZALM) Bell pair source for the particularly challenging problem of long-baseline entanglement distribution via satellites and ground-based memories, where it unlocks additional advantages: (i) the substantially higher channel efficiency $\eta$ of \textit{downlinks} vs.\ \textit{uplinks} with realistic adaptive optics, and (ii) photon loss occurring \textit{before} interaction with the quantum memory -- i.e., Alice and Bob receiving rather than transmitting -- improve entanglement generation rate scaling by $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{\eta})$. Based on numerical analyses, we estimate our protocol to achieve $>$10$~$ebits/s at memory multiplexing of $10^2$ spin qubits for ground distance $>$10$^2~$km, with the spin-spin Bell state fidelity exceeding 99$\%$. Our architecture presents a blueprint for realizing global-scale quantum networks in the near-term.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Optimal Entanglement Distribution using Satellite Based Quantum Networks

Recent technological advancements in satellite based quantum communication has made it a promising technology for realizing global scale quantum networks. Due to better loss distance scaling compared to ground based fiber communication, satellite quantum communication can distribute high quality quantum entanglements among ground stations that are geographically separated at very long distances. This work focuses on optimal distribution of bipartite entanglements to a set of pair of ground stations using a constellation of orbiting satellites. In particular, we characterize the optimal satellite-to-ground station transmission scheduling policy with respect to the aggregate entanglement distribution rate subject to various resource constraints at the satellites and ground stations. We cast the optimal transmission scheduling problem as an integer linear programming problem and solve it efficiently for some specific scenarios. Our framework can also be used as a benchmark tool to measure the performance of other potential transmission scheduling policies.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Heralded-Multiplexed High-Efficiency Cascaded Source of Dual-Rail Polarization-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.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Multiplexed quantum repeaters based on dual-species trapped-ion systems

Trapped ions form an advanced technology platform for quantum information processing with long qubit coherence times, high-fidelity quantum logic gates, optically active qubits, and a potential to scale up in size while preserving a high level of connectivity between qubits. These traits make them attractive not only for quantum computing but also for quantum networking. Dedicated, special-purpose trapped-ion processors in conjunction with suitable interconnecting hardware can be used to form quantum repeaters that enable high-rate quantum communications between distant trapped-ion quantum computers in a network. In this regard, hybrid traps with two distinct species of ions, where one ion species can generate ion-photon entanglement that is useful for optically interfacing with the network and the other has long memory lifetimes, useful for qubit storage, have been proposed for entanglement distribution. We consider an architecture for a repeater based on such dual-species trapped-ion systems. We propose and analyze a protocol based on spatial and temporal mode multiplexing for entanglement distribution across a line network of such repeaters. Our protocol offers enhanced rates compared to rates previously reported for such repeaters. We determine the ion resources required at the repeaters to attain the enhanced rates, and the best rates attainable when constraints are placed on the number of repeaters and the number of ions per repeater. Our results bolster the case for near-term trapped-ion systems as quantum repeaters for long-distance quantum communications.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Coherent manipulation of graph states composed of finite-energy Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill-encoded qubits

Graph states are a central resource in measurement-based quantum information processing. In the photonic qubit architecture based on Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) encoding, the generation of high-fidelity graph states composed of realistic, finite-energy approximate GKP-encoded qubits thus constitutes a key task. We consider the finite-energy approximation of GKP qubit states given by a coherent superposition of shifted finite-squeezed vacuum states, where the displacements are Gaussian distributed. We present an exact description of graph states composed of such approximate GKP qubits as a coherent superposition of a Gaussian ensemble of randomly displaced ideal GKP-qubit graph states. We determine the transformation rules for the covariance matrix and the mean displacement vector of the Gaussian distribution of the ensemble under tools such as GKP-Steane error correction and fusion operations that can be used to grow large, high-fidelity GKP-qubit graph states. The former captures the noise in the graph state due to the finite-energy approximation of GKP qubits, while the latter relates to the possible absolute displacement errors on the individual qubits due to the homodyne measurements that are a part of these tools. The rules thus help in pinning down an exact coherent error model for graph states generated from truly finite-energy GKP qubits, which can shed light on their error correction properties.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Subexponential rate versus distance with time-multiplexed quantum repeaters

Quantum communications capacity using direct transmission over length-$L$ optical fiber scales as $R \sim e^{-\alpha L}$, where $\alpha$ is the fiber's loss coefficient. The rate achieved using a linear chain of quantum repeaters equipped with quantum memories, probabilistic Bell state measurements (BSMs) and switches used for spatial multiplexing, but no quantum error correction, was shown to surpass the direct-transmission capacity. However, this rate still decays exponentially with the end-to-end distance, viz., $R \sim e^{-s{\alpha L}}$, with $s < 1$. We show that the introduction of temporal multiplexing - i.e., the ability to perform BSMs among qubits at a repeater node that were successfully entangled with qubits at distinct neighboring nodes at {\em different} time steps - leads to a sub-exponential rate-vs.-distance scaling, i.e., $R \sim e^{-t\sqrt{\alpha L}}$, which is not attainable with just spatial or spectral multiplexing. We evaluate analytical upper and lower bounds to this rate, and obtain the exact rate by numerically optimizing the time-multiplexing block length and the number of repeater nodes. We further demonstrate that incorporating losses in the optical switches used to implement time multiplexing degrades the rate-vs.-distance performance, eventually falling back to exponential scaling for very lossy switches. We also examine models for quantum memory decoherence and describe optimal regimes of operation to preserve the desired boost from temporal multiplexing. Quantum memory decoherence is seen to be more detrimental to the repeater's performance over switching losses.

quant-ph↗