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We show that all Macroscopic Quantum Superpositions (MQS) based on phase-covariant quantum cloning are characterized by an anomalous high resilence to the de-coherence processes. The analysis supports the results of recent MQS experiments and leads to conceive a useful conjecture regarding the realization of complex decoherence - free structures for quantum information, such as the quantum computer., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures

Two quantum Macro-states and their Macroscopic Quantum Superpositions (MQS) localized in two far apart, space - like separated sites can be non-locally correlated by any entangled couple of single-particles having interacted in the past. This novel Macro - Macro paradigm is investigated on the basis of a recent study on an entangled Micro-Macro system involving N=10^5 particles. Crucial experimental issues as the violation of Bell's inequalities by the Macro - Macro system are considered., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

The orbital angular momentum of photons, being defined in an infinitely dimensional discrete Hilbert space, offers a promising resource for high-dimensional quantum information protocols in quantum optics. The biggest obstacle to its wider use is presently represented by the limited set of tools available for its control and manipulation. Here, we introduce and test experimentally a series of simple optical schemes for the coherent transfer of quantum information from the polarization to the orbital angular momentum of single photons and vice versa. All our schemes exploit a newly developed optical device, the so-called "q-plate", which enables the manipulation of the photon orbital angular momentum driven by the polarization degree of freedom. By stacking several q-plates in a suitable sequence, one can also access to higher-order angular momentum subspaces. In particular, we demonstrate the control of the orbital angular momentum $m$ degree of freedom within the subspaces of $|m|=2 \hbar$ and $|m|=4\hbar$ per photon. Our experiments prove that these schemes are reliable, efficient and have a high fidelity., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures

The Quantum Private Query is a quantum cryptographic protocol to recover information from a database, preserving both user and data privacy: the user can test whether someone has retained information on which query was asked, and the database provider can test the quantity of information released. Here we introduce a new variant Quantum Private Query algorithm which admits a simple linear optical implementation: it employs the photon's momentum (or time slot) as address qubits and its polarization as bus qubit. A proof-of-principle experimental realization is implemented., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures

The high resilience to de-coherence shown by a recently discovered Macroscopic Quantum Superposition (MQS) generated by a quantum injected optical parametric amplifier (QI-OPA) and involving a number of photons in excess of 5x10^4 motivates the present theoretical and numerical investigation. The results are analyzed in comparison with the properties of the MQS based on coherent states and NOON states, in the perspective of the comprehensive theory of the subject by W.H.Zurek. In that perspective the concepts of "pointer state", "einselection" are applied to the new scheme., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures

Different procedures have been developed in order to recover entanglement after propagation over a noisy channel. Besides a certain amount of noise, entanglement is completely lost and the channel is called entanglement breaking. Here we investigate both theoretically and experimentally an entanglement concentration protocol for a mixed three-qubit state outgoing from a strong linear coupling of two-qubit maximally entangled polarization state with another qubit in a completely mixed state. Thanks to such concentration procedure, the initial entanglement can be probabilistically recovered. Furthermore, we analyse the case of sequential linear couplings with many depolarized photons showing that thanks to the concentration a full recovering of entanglement is still possible., Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, to be published on Advanced Science Letters

A 6-qubit hyperentangled state has been realized by entangling two photons in three degrees of freedom. These correspond to the polarization, the longitudinal momentum and the indistinguishable emission produced by a 2-crystal system operating with Type I phase matching in the spontaneous parametric down conversion regime. The state has been characterized by a chained interferometric apparatus and its complete entangled nature has been tested by a novel witness criterium specifically introduced for hyperentangled states. The experiment represents the first realization of a genuine hyperentangled state with the maximum entanglement between the two particles allowed in the given Hilbert space., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Revtex4

The optical "spin-orbit" coupling occurring in a suitably patterned nonuniform birefringent plate known as `q-plate' allows entangling the polarization of a single photon with its orbital angular momentum (OAM). This process, in turn, can be exploited for building a bidirectional "spin-OAM interface", capable of transposing the quantum information from the spin to the OAM degree of freedom of photons and \textit{vice versa}. Here, we experimentally demonstrate this process by single-photon quantum tomographic analysis. Moreover, we show that two-photon quantum correlations such as those resulting from coalescence interference can be successfully transferred into the OAM degree of freedom., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

We present a novel optical device based on an integrated system of micro-lenses and single mode optical fibers. It allows to collect and direct into many modes two photons generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion. By this device multiqubit entangled states and/or multilevel qu-$d$it states of two photons, encoded in the longitudinal momentum degree of freedom, are created. The multi-path photon entanglement realized by this device is expected to find important applications in modern quantum information technology., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, revtex, revised version

Franson's Bell experiment with energy-time entanglement [Phys. Rev. Lett. 62, 2205 (1989)] does not rule out all local hidden variable models. This defect can be exploited to compromise the security of Bell inequality-based quantum cryptography. We introduce a novel Bell experiment using genuine energy-time entanglement, based on a novel interferometer, which rules out all local hidden variable models. The scheme is feasible with actual technology., Comment: REVTeX4, 4 pages, 2 figures

The high resilience to de-coherence shown by a recently discovered Macroscopic Quantum Superposition (MQS) involving a number of photons in excess of 5 x 10^4 motivates the present theoretical and numerical investigation. The results are placed in close comparison with the properties of the well known MQS based on |alpha> states. The very critical decoherence properties of the latter MQS are found to be fully accounted for, in a direct a simple way, by a unique "universal" function: indeed a new property of the quantum "coherent states"., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

A new criterium to detect the entanglement present in a {\it hyperentangled state}, based on the evaluation of an entanglement witness, is presented. We show how some witnesses recently introduced for graph states, measured by only two local settings, can be used in this case. We also define a new witness $W_3$ that improves the resistance to noise by increasing the number of local measurements., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, RevTex. v2: new title, minor changes in the explanation of the witness for hyperentangled states, more comments in the conclusions section

We describe in detail the application of four qubit cluster states, built on the simultaneous entanglement of two photons in the degrees of freedom of polarization and linear momentum, for the realization of a complete set of basic one-way quantum computation operations. These consist of arbitrary single qubit rotations, either probabilistic or deterministic, and simple two qubit gates, such as a c-not gate for equatorial qubits and a universal c-phase (CZ) gate acting on arbitrary target qubits. Other basic computation operations, such as the Grover's search and the Deutsch's algorithms, have been realized by using these states. In all the cases we obtained a high value of the operation fidelities. These results demonstrate that cluster states of two photons entangled in many degrees of freedom are good candidates for the realization of more complex quantum computation operations based on a larger number of qubits., Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, 6 tables

A Macro-state consisting of N= 3.5 x 10^4 photons in a quantum superposition and entangled with a far apart single-photon state (Micro-state) is generated. Precisely, an entangled photon pair is created by a nonlinear optical process, then one photon of the pair is injected into an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) operating for any input polarization state, i.e. into a phase-covariant cloning machine. Such transformation establishes a connection between the single photon and the multi particle fields. We then demonstrate the non-separability of the bipartite system by adopting a local filtering technique within a positive operator valued measurement., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

We report on the implementation of a new interferometric scheme that allows the generation of photon pairs entangled in the time-energy degree of freedom. This scheme does not require any kind of temporal post-selection on the generated pairs and can be used even with lasers with short coherence time., Comment: RevTex, 6 pages, 8 figures

We present the realization of a ultra fast shutter for optical fields, which allows to preserve a generic polarization state, based on a self-stabilized interferometer. It exhibits high (or low) transmittivity when turned on (or inactive), while the fidelity of the polarization state is high. The shutter is realized through two beam displacing prisms and a longitudinal Pockels cell. This can represent a useful tool for controlling light-atom interfaces in quantum information processing., Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures

Quantum entanglement, a fundamental property ensuring security of key distribution and efficiency of quantum computing, is extremely sensitive to decoherence. Different procedures have been developed in order to recover entanglement after propagation over a noisy channel. However, besides a certain amount of noise, entanglement is completely lost. In this case the channel is called entanglement breaking and any multi-copy distillation methods cannot help to restore even a bit of entanglement. We report the experimental realization of a new method which restores entanglement from a single photon entanglement breaking channel. The method based on measurement of environmental light and quantum feed-forward correction can reveal entanglement even if this one completely disappeared. This protocol provides new elements to overcome decoherence effects., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures

NOON states are path entangled states which can be exploited to enhance phase resolution in interferometric measurements. In the present paper we analyze the quantum states obtained by optical parametric amplification of polarization NOON states. First we study, theoretically and experimentally, the amplification of a 2-photon state by a collinear Quantum Injected Optical Parametric Amplifier (QIOPA). We compared the stimulated emission regime with the spontaneous one, studied by Sciarrino et al. (PRA 77, 012324), finding comparable visibilities between the two cases but an enhancement of the signal in the stimulated case. As a second step, we show that the collinear amplifier cannot be successfully used for amplifying N-photon states with N>2 due to the intrinsic \lambda/4 oscillation pattern of the crystal. To overcome this limitation, we propose to adopt a scheme for the amplification of a generic state based on a non-collinear QIOPA and we show that the state obtained by the amplification process preserves \lambda/N feature and exhibits a high resilience to losses. Furthermore, an asymptotic unity visibility can be obtained when correlation functions with sufficiently high order M are analyzed., Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures

The study of optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) has been successful in describing and creating nonclassical light for use in fields such as quantum metrology and quantum lithography [Agarwal, et al., J. Opt. Soc. Am. B, 24, 2 (2007)]. In this paper we present the theory of an OPA scheme utilizing an entangled state input. The scheme involves two identical OPAs seeded with the maximally path-entangled N00N state (|2,0>+|0,2>)/sqrt{2}. The stimulated amplification results in output state probability amplitudes that have a dependence on the number of photons in each mode, which differs greatly from two-mode squeezed vacuum. The output contains a family of entangled states directly applicable to quantum key distribution. Specific output states allow for the heralded creation of N=4 N00N states, which may be used for quantum lithography, to write sub-Rayleigh fringe patterns, and for quantum interferometry, to achieve Heisenberg-limited phase measurement sensitivity., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

The multiphoton quantum superposition generated by a quantum-injected optical parametric amplifier (QI-OPA) seeded by a single-photon belonging to an EPR entangled pair is made to interact with a Mirror-BEC shaped as a Bragg interference structure. The effect can be greatly enhanced if the mirror is part of a cavity structure or is used within an optical interferometer. The overall process will realize an Entangled Macroscopic Quantum Superposition involving a ''microscopic'' singe-photon state of polarization and the coherent ''macroscopic'' displacement of the BEC structure acting in space-like separated distant places., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

In recent years two fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics have attracted a great deal of interest, namely the investigation on the irreducible nonlocal properties of Nature implied by quantum entanglement and the physical realization of the 'Schroedinger Cat'. In the present work a macro - state consisting of about 3.5 x 10^4 photons in a quantum superposition and entangled with a far apart single - photon state is generated. Then, the non-separability of the overall micro-macro system is demonstrated and the corresponding Bell's inequalities are found to be violated. Precisely, an entangled photon pair is created by a nonlinear optical process, then one photon of the pair is injected into an optical parametric amplifier operating for any input polarization state, i.e. into a phase-covariant cloning machine. Such transformation establishes a connection between the single photon and the multi particle fields. We then demonstrate the non-separability of the bipartite system by adopting a local filtering technique within a positive operator valued measurement., Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures

Quantum lithography proposes to adopt entangled quantum states in order to increase resolution in interferometry. In the present paper we experimentally demonstrate that the output of a high-gain optical parametric amplifier can be intense yet exhibits quantum features, namely, sub-Rayleigh fringes, as proposed by Agarwal et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1389 (2001)). We investigate multiphoton states generated by a high-gain optical parametric amplifier operating with a quantum vacuum input for a gain values up to 2.5. The visibility has then been increased by means of three-photon absorption. The present article opens interesting perspectives for the implementation of such an advanced interferometrical setup., Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures

By using 2-photon 4-qubit cluster states we demonstrate deterministic one-way quantum computation in single qubit rotation algorithm. In this operation feed-forward measurements are automatically implemented by properly choosing the measurement basis of the qubits, while Pauli error corrections are realized by using two fast driven Pockels cells. We realized also a C-NOT gate for equatorial qubits and a C-Phase gate for a generic target qubit. Our results demonstrate that 2-photon cluster states can be used for rapid and efficient deterministic one-way quantum computing., Comment: Revtex4, 4 pages, 3 figures

We investigate the multiphoton states generated by high-gain optical parametric amplification of a single injected photon, polarization encoded as a ''qubit''. The experiment configuration exploits the optimal phase-covariant cloning in the high gain regime. The interference fringe pattern showing the non local transfer of coherence between the injected qubit and the mesoscopic amplified output field involving up to 4000 photons has been investigated. A probabilistic new method to extract full information about the multiparticle output wavefunction has been implemented., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

Based on a recent proposal [Phys. Rev. A 71, 062337 (2005)], we have experimentally realized two photon polarization qutrits by using non-maximally entangled states and linear optical transformations. By this technique high fidelity mutually unbiased qutrits are generated at a high brilliance level., Comment: RevTex, 8 pages, 6 figures

Four-qubit cluster states of two photons entangled in polarization and linear momentum have been used to realize a complete set of single qubit rotations and the C-NOT gate for equatorial qubits with high values of fidelity. By the computational equivalence of the two degrees of freedom our result demonstrate the suitability of two photon cluster states for rapid and efficient one-way quantum computing., Comment: RevTex4, 4 pages, 3 figures

In 1981 N. Herbert proposed a gedanken experiment in order to achieve by the ''First Laser Amplified Superluminal Hookup'' (FLASH) a faster than light communication (FTL) by quantum nonlocality. The present work reports the first experimental realization of that proposal by the optical parametric amplification of a single photon belonging to an entangled EPR pair into an output field involving 5 x 10^3 photons. A thorough theoretical and experimental analysis explains in general and conclusive terms the precise reasons for the failure of the FLASH program as well as of any similar FTL proposals., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

We report on the experimental realization of a 4-qubit linear cluster state via two photons entangled both in polarization and linear momentum. This state was investigated by performing tomographic measurements and by evaluating an entanglement witness. By use of this state we carried out a novel nonlocality proof, the so-called ``stronger two observer all versus nothing'' test of quantum nonlocality., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

The optimal phase covariant cloning machine (PQCM) broadcasts the information associated to an input qubit into a multi-qubit systems, exploiting a partial a-priori knowledge of the input state. This additional a priori information leads to a higher fidelity than for the universal cloning. The present article first analyzes different experimental schemes to implement the 1->3 PQCM. The method is then generalized to any 1->M machine for odd value of M by a theoretical approach based on the general angular momentum formalism. Finally different experimental schemes based either on linear or non-linear methods and valid for single photon polarization encoded qubits are discussed., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures

We investigate the multiparticle quantum superposition and the persistence of multipartite entanglement of the quantum superposition generated by the quantum injected high-gain optical parametric amplification of a single photon. The physical configuration based on the optimal universal quantum cloning has been adopted to investigate how the entanglement and the quantum coherence of the system persists for large values of the nonlinear parametric gain g., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

A complete and deterministic Bell state measurement was realized by a simple linear optics experimental scheme which adopts 2-photon polarization-momentum hyperentanglement. The scheme, which is based on the discrimination among the single photon Bell states of the hyperentangled state, requires the adoption of standard single photon detectors. The four polarization Bell states have been measured with average fidelity $F=0.889\pm0.010$ by using the linear momentum degree of freedom as the ancilla. The feasibility of the scheme has been characterized as a function of the purity of momentum entanglement., Comment: 4 pages, v2, comments added

Mermin's observation [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 65}, 1838 (1990)] that the magnitude of the violation of local realism, defined as the ratio between the quantum prediction and the classical bound, can grow exponentially with the size of the system is demonstrated using two-photon hyper-entangled states entangled in polarization and path degrees of freedom, and local measurements of polarization and path simultaneously., Comment: Minor errors corrected. To appear on Physical Review Letters

Photon pairs, highly entangled in polarization have been generated under femtosecond laser pulse excitation by a type I crystal source, operating in a single arm interferometric scheme. The relevant effects of temporal walk-off existing in these conditions between the ordinary and extraordinary photons were experimentally investigated. By introducing a suitable temporal compensation between the two orthogonal polarization components highly entangled pulsed states were obtained.

The multiphoton states generated by high-gain spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in presence of large losses are investigated theoretically and experimentally. The explicit form for the two-photon output state has been found to exhibit a Werner structure very resilient to losses for any value of the gain parameter, g. The theoretical results are found in agreement with the experimental data. The last ones are obtained by quantum tomography of the state generated by a high-gain SPDC., Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures

We report the first experimental realization of an ''optimal'' quantum device able to perform a Minimal Disturbance Measurement (MDM) on polarization encoded qubits saturating the theoretical boundary established between the classical knowledge acquired of any input state, i.e. the classical "guess", and the fidelity of the same state after disturbance due to measurement . The device has been physically realized by means of a linear optical qubit manipulation, post-selection measurement and a classical feed-forward process., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures

We report the realization of an entangled quantum superposition of M=12 photons by a high gain, quantum-injected optical parametric amplification. The system is found so highly resilient against decoherence to exhibit directly accessible mesoscopic interference effects at normal temperature. By modern tomographic methods the non-separability and the quantum superposition are demonstrated for the overall mesoscopic output state of the dynamic ''closed system''. The device realizes the condition conceived by Erwin Schroedinger with his 1935 paradigmatic ''Cat'' apologue, a fundamental landmark in quantum mechanics., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures

An application of quantum cloning to optimally interface a quantum system with a classical observer is presented, in particular we describe a procedure to perform a minimal disturbance measurement on a single qubit by adopting a 1->2 cloning machine followed by a generalized measurement on a single clone and the anti-clone or on the two clones. Such scheme has been applied to enhance the transmission fidelity over a lossy quantum channel., Comment: 4 pages, 2figures

We report the experimental realization and the characterization of polarization and momentum hyperentangled two photon states, generated by a new parametric source of correlated photon pairs. By adoption of these states an "all versus nothing" test of quantum mechanics was performed. The two photon hyperentangled states are expected to find at an increasing rate a widespread application in state engineering and quantum information. PACS: 03.65.Ud, 03.67.Mn, 42.65. Lm, Comment: Replaced with published version

The quantum cloner machine maps an unknown arbitrary input qubit into two optimal clones and one optimal flipped qubit. By combining linear and non-linear optical methods we experimentally implement a scheme that, after the cloning transformation, restores the original input qubit in one of the output channels, by using local measurements, classical communication and feedforward. This significant teleportation-like method demonstrates how the information is preserved during the cloning process. The realization of the reversion process is expected to find useful applications in the field of modern multi-partite quantum cryptography., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures

The 1->3 quantum phase covariant cloning, which optimally clones qubits belonging to the equatorial plane of the Bloch sphere, achieves the fidelity Fcov(1->3)=0.833, larger than for the 1->3 universal cloning Funiv(1->3)=0.778. We show how the 1->3 phase covariant cloning can be implemented by a smart modification of the standard universal quantum machine by a projection of the output states over the symmetric subspace. A complete experimental realization of the protocol for polarization encoded qubits based on non-linear and linear methods will be discussed., Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures

A general multi-step N->M probabilistic optimal universal cloning protocol is presented together with the experimental realization of the (1 -> 3) and (2 -> 3) machines. Since the present method exploits the bosonic nature of the photons, it can be applied to any particle obeying to the Bose statistics. On a technological perspective, the present protocol is expected to find applications as a novel, multi-qubit symmetrizator device to be used in modern quantum information networks., Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures

We report the successful generation of an entangled multiparticle quantum superposition of pure photon states. They result from a multiple (universal} cloning of a single photon qubit by a high gain, quantum-injected parametric amplifier. The information preserving property of the process suggests for these states the name of ''multi-particle qubits''. They are ideal objects for investigating the emergence of the classical world in quantum systems with increasing complexity, the decoherence processes and may allow the practical implementation of the universal 2-qubit logic gates., Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures

We present the first experimental demonstration of the ''optimal'' and ''universal'' quantum entangling process involving qubits encoded in the polarization of single photons. The structure of the ''quantum entangling machine'' consists of the quantum injected optical parametric amplifier by which the contextual realization of the 1->2 universal quantum cloning and of the universal NOT (U-NOT) gate has also been achieved., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Physical Review A

Optimal quantum machines can be implemented by linear projective operations. In the present work a general qubit symmetrization theory is presented by investigating the close links to the qubit purification process and to the programmable teleportation of any generic optimal anti-unitary map. In addition, the contextual realization of the N ->M cloning map and of the teleportation of the N->(M-N) universal NOT gate is analyzed by a novel and very general angular momentum theory. An extended set of experimental realizations by state symmetrization linear optical procedures is reported. These include the 1->2 cloning process, the UNOT gate and the quantum tomographic characterization of the optimal partial transpose map of polarization encoded qubits., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures

We have experimentally tested the non local properties of the states generated by a high brilliance source of entanglement which virtually allows the direct measurement of the full set of photon pairs created by the basic QED process implied by the parametric quantum scattering. Standard Bell measurements and Bell's inequality violation test have been realized over the entire cone of emission of the degenerate pairs. By the same source we have verified the Hardy's ladder theory up to the 20th step and the contradiction between the standard quantum theory and the local realism has been tested for 41% of entangled pairs. PACS: 03.65.Ud, 03.67.Mn, 42.65.Lm

We report on the the experimental realization of hyper-entangled two photon states, entangled in polarization and momentum. These states are produced by a high brilliance parametric source of entangled photon pairs with peculiar characteristics of flexibility in terms of state generation. The quality of the entanglement in the two degrees of freedom has been tested by multimode Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometry.

We report the experimental realization of the purification protocol for single qubits sent through a depolarization channel. The qubits are associated with polarization encoded photon particles and the protocol is achieved by means of passive linear optical elements. The present approach may represent a convenient alternative to the distillation and error correction protocols of quantum information., Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures

A simultaneous realization of the Universal Optimal Quantum Cloning Machine (UOQCM) and of the Universal-NOT gate by a quantum injected optical parametric amplification (QIOPA), is reported. The two processes, forbidden in their exact form for fundamental quantum limitations, are found universal and optimal, and the measured fidelity F<1 is found close to the limit values evaluated by quantum theory. This work may enlighten the yet little explored interconnections of fundamental axiomatic properties within the deep structure of quantum mechanics., Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures

In the context of Quantum Information (QI) the ''Faraday Mirror'' acts as a non-universal NOT Gate. As such its behaviour complies with the principles of quantum mechanics. This non trivial result, at the core of some recent misinterpretations in the QI community, has been reached by a thorough experimental investigation of the properties of the device including the adoption of modern Quantum Process Tomography. In addition, the ''universal optical compensation'' method devised by Mario Martinelli, of common use in long distance quantum-cryptography, has been fully investigated theoretically and experimentally., Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures