Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Parity-dependent photon-subtracted two-mode squeezed vacuum states

Ananga Mohan Datta1,2, Andrea Blanco-Redondo3, Kurt Busch1,4, and Armando Perez-Leija5

Phys. Rev. A 112, 023701 – Published 1 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/4x83-y4bg

Abstract

The removal of photons from certain quantum light sources produces so-called photon-subtracted states with enhanced mean photon numbers and intricate quantum correlations. Here, we propose an integrated photon-subtraction scheme that, contrary to previous approaches, is not heralded by photon correlation (coincidence) measurements. In this way, our technique exploits the “Welcher Weg” (“which way”) information problem, as it does not provide information about the modes from which the subtracted photons emanated. We show that this lack of information allows the generation of multiphoton states endowed with rich quantum correlations that strongly depend on the parity, evenness or oddness, of the number of subtracted photons.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (44)

  1. A. Datta, L. Zhang, N. Thomas-Peter, U. Dorner, B. J. Smith, and I. A. Walmsley, Quantum metrology with imperfect states and detectors, Phys. Rev. A 83, 063836 (2011).
  2. F. D. Anno, S. D. Siena, and F. Illuminati, Multiphoton quantum optics and quantum state engineering, Phys. Rep. 428, 53 (2006).
  3. E. Knill, R. Laflamme, and G. J. Milburn, A scheme for efficient quantum computation with linear optics, Nature (London) 409, 46 (2001).
  4. A. F. Abouraddy, B. E. A. Saleh, A. V. Sergienko, and M. C. Teich, Role of entanglement in two-photon imaging, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 123602 (2001).
  5. M. Bellini and A. Zavatta, Manipulating light states by single-photon addition and subtraction, in Progress in Optics, Vol. 55, edited by E. Wolf (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2010), Chap. 2, pp. 41–83.
  6. R. Carranza and C. C. Gerry, Photon-subtracted two-mode squeezed vacuum states and applications to quantum optical interferometry, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 29, 2581 (2012).
  7. L. Fan and M. S. Zubairy, Quantum illumination using non-Gaussian states generated by photon subtraction and photon addition, Phys. Rev. A 98, 012319 (2018).
  8. O. S. Magaña-Loaiza, R. de J. León-Montiel, A. Perez-Leija, A. B. U'Ren, C. You, K. Busch, A. E. Lita, S. W. Nam, R. P. Mirin, and T. Gerrits, Multiphoton quantum-state engineering using conditional measurements, npj Quantum Inf. 5, 80 (2019).
  9. A. Zavatta, V. Parigi, M. S. Kim, and M. Bellini, Subtracting photons from arbitrary light fields: Experimental test of coherent state invariance by single-photon annihilation, New J. Phys. 10, 123006 (2008).
  10. C. M. Nunn, J. D. Franson, and T. B. Pittman, Modifying quantum optical states by zero-photon subtraction, Phys. Rev. A 105, 033702 (2022).
  11. M. Endo, R. He, T. Sonoyama, K. Takahashi, T. Kashiwazaki, T. Umeki, S. Takasu, K. Hattori, D. Fukuda, K. Fukui, K. Takase, W. Asavanant, P. Marek, R. Filip, and A. Furusawa, Non-Gaussian quantum state generation by multi-photon subtraction at the telecommunication wavelength, Opt. Express 31, 12865 (2023).
  12. O. Rosas-Ortiz and K. Zelaya, Theory of photon subtraction for two-mode entangled light beams, Quantum Rep. 3, 500 (2021).
  13. K. G. Katamadze, G. V. Avosopiants, N. A. Bogdanova, Y. I. Bogdanov, and S. P. Kulik, Multimode thermal states with multiphoton subtraction: Study of the photon-number distribution in the selected subsystem, Phys. Rev. A 101, 013811 (2020).
  14. X.-G. Meng, K.-C. Li, J.-S. Wang, X.-Y. Zhang, Z.-T. Zhang, Z.-S. Yang, and B.-L. Liang, Continuous-variable entanglement and Wigner-function negativity via adding or subtracting photons, Ann. Phys. 532, 1900585 (2020).
  15. K. Thapliyal, J. Peřina, Jr., O. Haderka, V. Michálek, and R. Machulka, Experimental characterization of multimode photon-subtracted twin beams, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 013065 (2024).
  16. J. Peřina, K. Thapliyal, O. Haderka, V. Michálek, and R. Machulka, Sub-Poissonian twin beams, Opt. Quantum 2, 148 (2024).
  17. T. Opatrný, G. Kurizki, and D. G. Welsch, Improvement on teleportation of continuous variables by photon subtraction via conditional measurement, Phys. Rev. A 61, 032302 (2000).
  18. A. Ourjoumtsev, A. Dantan, R. Tualle-Brouri, and P. Grangier, Increasing entanglement between Gaussian states by coherent photon subtraction, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 030502 (2007).
  19. T. J. Bartley, P. J. D. Crowley, A. Datta, J. Nunn, L. Zhang, and I. Walmsley, Strategies for enhancing quantum entanglement by local photon subtraction, Phys. Rev. A 87, 022313 (2013).
  20. A. Blanco-Redondo, B. Bell, D. Oren, B. J. Eggleton, and M. Segev, Topological protection of biphoton states, Science 362, 568 (2018).
  21. A. Szameit and S. Nolte, Discrete optics in femtosecond-laser-written photonic structures, J. Phys. B 43, 163001 (2010).
  22. A. Perez-Leija, J. C. Hernandez-Herrejon, H. Moya-Cessa, A. Szameit, and D. N. Christodoulides, Generating photon-encoded w states in multiport waveguide-array systems, Phys. Rev. A 87, 013842 (2013).
  23. M. Gräfe, R. Heilmann, A. Perez-Leija, R. Keil, F. Dreisow, M. Heinrich, H. Moya-Cessa, S. Nolte, D. N. Christodoulides, and A. Szameit, On-chip generation of high-order single-photon w-states, Nat. Photon. 8, 791 (2014).
  24. S. Rojas-Rojas, E. Barriga, C. Muñoz, P. Solano, and C. Hermann-Avigliano, Manipulation of multimode squeezing in a coupled waveguide array, Phys. Rev. A 100, 023841 (2019).
  25. L. Mandel and E. Wolf, Optical Coherence and Quantum Optics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1995).
  26. M. Dakna, T. Anhut, T. Opatrný, L. Knöll, and D.-G. Welsch, Generating Schrödinger-cat-like states by means of conditional measurements on a beam splitter, Phys. Rev. A 55, 3184 (1997).
  27. W. Vogel, Nonclassical correlation properties of radiation fields, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 013605 (2008).
  28. J. Sperling, W. Vogel, and G. S. Agarwal, Correlation measurements with on-off detectors, Phys. Rev. A 88, 043821 (2013).
  29. J. Sperling, M. Bohmann, W. Vogel, G. Harder, B. Brecht, V. Ansari, and C. Silberhorn, Uncovering quantum correlations with time-multiplexed click detection, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 023601 (2015).
  30. A. Serafini, M. G. A. Paris, F. Illuminati, and S. D. Siena, Quantifying decoherence in continuous variable systems, J. Opt. B 7, R19 (2005).
  31. C. C. Gerry and R. Grobe, Nonclassical properties of correlated two-mode Schrödinger cat states, Phys. Rev. A 51, 1698 (1995).
  32. B. Hacker, S. Welte, S. Daiss, A. Shaukat, S. Ritter, L. Li, and G. Rempe, Deterministic creation of entangled atom–light Schrödinger-cat states, Nat. Photon. 13, 110 (2019).
  33. G. Benenti, G. Casati, and G. Strini, Principles of Quantum Computation and Information, Volume II: Basic Tools and Special Topics (World Scientific, Singapore, 2007).
  34. S. Weimann, A. Perez-Leija, M. Lebugle, R. Keil, M. Tichy, M. Graefe, R. Heilmann, S. Nolte, H. Moya-Cessa, G. Weihs, D. N. Christodoulides, and A. Szameit, Implementation of quantum and classical discrete fractional Fourier transforms, Nat. Commun. 7, 11027 (2016).
  35. M. A. Selim, M. Ehrhardt, Y. Ding, H. M. Dinani, Q. Zhong, A. Perez-Leija, Ş. K. Özdemir, M. Heinrich, A. Szameit, D. N. Christodoulides, and M. Khajavikhan, Selective filtering of photonic quantum entanglement via anti-parity-time symmetry, Science 387, 1424 (2025).
  36. A. Politi, M. J. Cryan, J. G. Rarity, S. Yu, and J. L. O'Brien, Silica-on-silicon waveguide quantum circuits, Science 320, 646 (2008).
  37. J. Provazník, L. Lachman, R. Filip, and P. Marek, Benchmarking photon number resolving detectors, Opt. Express 28, 14839 (2020).
  38. J. A. Anaya-Contreras, A. Zúñiga-Segundo, A. Perez-Leija, R. de J Leon-Montiel, and H. M. Moya-Cessa, Multiphoton processes via conditional measurements in the two-field interaction, J. Opt. 23, 095201 (2021).
  39. A. M. Datta, A. Perez-Leija, and K. Busch, Tailoring the nonclassicality of light states via mode detuning in waveguide beam splitters, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 41, 1557 (2024).
  40. J. Wang, F. Sciarrino, A. Laing, and M. G. Thompson, Integrated photonic quantum technologies, Nat. Photon. 14, 273 (2020).
  41. L. Labonté, O. Alibart, V. D'Auria, F. Doutre, J. Etesse, G. Sauder, A. Martin, E. Picholle, and S. Tanzilli, Integrated photonics for quantum communications and metrology, PRX Quantum 5, 010101 (2024).
  42. L. Wang, G. Chai, Z. Cao, X. Chen, K. Liang, and J. Peng, Quantum purification for coherent states and its application, Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. 68, 220313 (2025).
  43. H. Zhao, H. Li, Y. Xu, P. Huang, T. Wang, and G. Zeng, Simple continuous-variable quantum key distribution scheme using a Sagnac-based Gaussian modulator, Opt. Lett. 47, 2939 (2022).
  44. J. B. Spring, B. J. Metcalf, P. C. Humphreys, W. S. Kolthammer, X.-M. Jin, M. Barbieri, A. Datta, N. Thomas-Peter, N. K. Langford, D. Kundys, J. C. Gates, B. J. Smith, P. G. R. Smith, and I. A. Walmsley, Boson sampling on a photonic chip, Science 339, 798 (2013).

Outline

Information

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation