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S. P. Walborn

Publications and source records attributed to S. P. Walborn.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

Spatial correlations in parametric down-conversion

The transverse spatial effects observed in photon pairs produced by parametric down-conversion provide a robust and fertile testing ground for studies of quantum mechanics, non-classical states of light, correlated imaging and quantum information. Over the last 20 years there has been much progress in this area, ranging from technical advances and applications such as quantum imaging to investigations of fundamental aspects of quantum physics such as complementarity relations, Bell's inequality violation and entanglement. The field has grown immensely: a quick search shows that there are hundreds of papers published in this field. The objective of this article is to review the building blocks and major theoretical and experimental advances in the field, along with some possible technical applications and connections to other research areas.

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A Family of Continuous Variable Entanglement Criteria using General Entropy Functions

We derive a family of entanglement criteria for continuous variable systems based on the Rényi entropy of complementary distributions. We show that these entanglement witnesses can be more sensitive than those based on second-order moments, as well as previous tests involving the Shannon entropy [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{103}, 160505 (2009)]. We extend our results to include the case of discrete sampling, and develop another set of entanglement tests using the discrete Tsallis entropy. We provide several numerical results which show that our criteria can be used to identify entanglement in a number of experimentally relevant quantum states.

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Observation of tunable Popescu-Rohrlich correlations through post-selection of a gaussian state

We show that non-local Popescu-Rohrlich correlations can be observed in the post-selected results of binned position measurements on a two-party gaussian state. Our experiment is based on the spatial correlations of entangled photons and lens systems. We obtain a maximum violation of the CHSH inequality of 3.42, which corresponds to the implementation of a non-local AND gate with success probability of 0.93. These results do not conflict with quantum mechanics due to the post-selection required, and open up the possibility of experimental investigation of fundamental aspects of Popescu-Rohrlich non-locality with a reliable and simple experimental setup.

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Entropic Entanglement Criteria for Continuous Variables

We derive several entanglement criteria for bipartite continuous variable quantum systems based on the Shannon entropy. These criteria are more sensitive than those involving only second-order moments, and are equivalent to well-known variance product tests in the case of Gaussian states. Furthermore, they involve only a pair of quadrature measurements, and will thus should prove extremely useful the experimental identification of entanglement.

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Observation of a Non-local Optical Vortex

We report the observation of an optical vortex in the correlations of photons produced from spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The singularity appears in a non-local coordinate plane consisting of one degree of freedom of each photon.

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An Entropic Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Criterion

We propose an EPR inequality based on an entropic uncertainty relation for complementary continuous variable observables. This inequality is more sensitive than the previously established EPR inequality based on inferred variances, and opens up the possibility of EPR tests of quantum nonlocality in a wider variety of quantum states. We experimentally test the inequality using spatially entangled photons. For a particular quantum state, our experimental results show a violation of the entropic EPR inequality, while the variance EPR inequality is not violated.

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Propagation of transverse intensity correlations of a two-photon state

The propagation of transverse spatial correlations of photon pairs through arbitrary first-order linear optical systems is studied experimentally and theoretically using the fractional Fourier transform. Highly-correlated photon pairs in an EPR-like state are produced by spontaneous parametric down-conversion and subject to optical fractional Fourier transform systems. It is shown that the joint detection probability can display either correlation, anti-correlation, or no correlation, depending on the sum of the orders $α$ and $β$ of the transforms of the down-converted photons. We present analytical results for the propagation of the perfectly correlated EPR state, and numerical results for the propagation of the two-photon state produced from parametric down-conversion. We find good agreement between theory and experiment.

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Transverse spatial and frequency properties of two-photon states generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion

We present a detailed account of the two-photon states generated by SPDC in both type I and type II phase matching, including the effects of anisotropy of the nonlinear medium and the frequency spread of the down-converted fields. Accurate as well as simplified expressions are derived for type I and type II phase matching in the context of Fourier Optics. The main results are compared with experimental data available in the literature, showing good agreement in all cases.

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Detection of transverse entanglement in phase space

Transverse entanglement between pairs of photons can be detected through intensity correlation measurements in the near and far fields. We show theoretically and experimentally that at intermediate zones, it is also possible to detect transverse entanglement performing only intensity correlation measurements. Our results are applicable to a number of physical systems.

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Experimental investigation of the dynamics of entanglement: Sudden death, complementarity, and continuous monitoring of the environment

We report on an experimental investigation of the dynamics of entanglement between a single qubit and its environment, as well as for pairs of qubits interacting independently with individual environments, using photons obtained from parametric down-conversion. The qubits are encoded in the polarizations of single photons, while the interaction with the environment is implemented by coupling the polarization of each photon with its momentum. A convenient Sagnac interferometer allows for the implementation of several decoherence channels and for the continuous monitoring of the environment. For an initially-entangled photon pair, one observes the vanishing of entanglement before coherence disappears. For a single qubit interacting with an environment, the dynamics of complementarity relations connecting single-qubit properties and its entanglement with the environment is experimentally determined. The evolution of a single qubit under continuous monitoring of the environment is investigated, demonstrating that a qubit may decay even when the environment is found in the unexcited state. This implies that entanglement can be increased by local continuous monitoring, which is equivalent to entanglement distillation. We also present a detailed analysis of the transfer of entanglement from the two-qubit system to the two corresponding environments, between which entanglement may suddenly appear, and show instances for which no entanglement is created between dephasing environments, nor between each of them and the corresponding qubit: the initial two-qubit entanglement gets transformed into legitimate multiqubit entanglement of the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) type.

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Quantum communication without alignment using multiple-qubit single-photon states

We propose a scheme for encoding logical qubits in a subspace protected against collective rotations around the propagation axis using the polarization and transverse spatial degrees of freedom of single photons. This encoding allows for quantum key distribution without the need of a shared reference frame. We present methods to generate entangled states of two logical qubits using present day down-conversion sources and linear optics, and show that the application of these entangled logical states to quantum information schemes allows for alignment-free tests of Bell's inequalities, quantum dense coding and quantum teleportation.

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Quantum Non-Demolition Test of Bipartite Complementarity

We present a quantum circuit that implements a non-demolition measurement of complementary single- and bi-partite properties of a two-qubit system: entanglement and single-partite visibility and predictability. The system must be in a pure state with real coefficients in the computational basis, which allows a direct operational interpretation of those properties. The circuit can be realized in many systems of interest to quantum information.

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Experimental Observation of Environment-induced Sudden Death of Entanglement

We demonstrate the difference between local, single-particle dynamics and global dynamics of entangled quantum systems coupled to independent environments. Using an all-optical experimental setup, we show that, while the environment-induced decay of each system is asymptotic, quantum entanglement may suddenly disappear. This "sudden death" constitutes yet another distinct and counter-intuitive trait of entanglement.

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Quantum key distribution with higher-order alphabets using spatially-encoded qudits

We propose and demonstrate a quantum key distribution scheme in higher-order $d$-dimensional alphabets using spatial degrees of freedom of photons. Our implementation allows for the transmission of 4.56 bits per sifted photon, while providing improved security: an intercept-resend attack on all photons would induce an error rate of 0.47. Using our system, it should be possible to send more than a byte of information per sifted photon.

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Generation of a two-photon singlet beam

Controlling the pump beam transverse profile in multimode Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, we generate a ''localized" two-photon singlet state, in which both photons propagate in the same beam. This type of multi-photon singlet beam may useful in quantum communication to avoid decoherence. We show that although the photons are part of the same beam, they are never in the same plane wave mode, which is characterized by spatial antibunching behavior in the plane normal to the propagation direction.

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