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Entanglement potentials (EPs) enable the characterization and quantification of the nonclassicality of single-mode optical fields by measuring the entanglement generated through beam splitting. We experimentally generated single-photon states and tomographically reconstructed the corresponding two-qubit states to determine EPs defined via popular two-qubit measures of entanglement. These include the potentials for the relative entropy of entanglement (REEP), concurrence, and negativity. Among our experimental states, we found those that are very close (at least for some ranges of parameters) to the theoretical upper and lower bounds on relative EPs (or relative nonclassicality), i.e., when one EP is maximized or minimized for a given value if another EP. We experimentally confirmed the counterintuitive theoretical result of Ref. [Phys. Rev. A 92, 062314 (2015)] that the relative nonclassicality (specifically, the negativity potential for given values of the REEP) of single-photon states can be increased by dissipation., Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures

Hamiltonian exceptional points (HEPs) are spectral degeneracies of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians describing classical and semiclassical open systems with gain and/or loss. However, this definition overlooks the occurrence of quantum jumps in the evolution of open quantum systems. These quantum effects are properly accounted for by considering Liouvillians and their exceptional points (LEPs) [Minganti et al., Phys. Rev. A {\bf 100}, 062131 (2019)]. Here, we explicitly describe how standard quantum process tomography, which reveals the dynamics of a quantum system, can be readily applied to reveal and characterize LEPs of non-Hermitian systems. We conducted experiments on an IBM quantum processor to implement a prototype model simulating the decay of a single qubit through three competing channels. Subsequently, we performed tomographic reconstruction of the corresponding experimental Liouvillians and their LEPs using both single- and two-qubit operations. This example underscores the efficacy of process tomography in tuning and observing LEPs, despite the absence of HEPs in the model., Comment: 9+17 pages, 2+4 figures

Entanglement potentials are popular measures of the nonclassicality of single-mode optical fields. These potentials are defined by the amount of entanglement (measured by, e.g., the negativity or concurrence) of the two-mode field generated by mixing a given single-mode field with the vacuum on a balanced beam splitter. We generalize this concept to define the potentials for Bell nonlocality and quantum steering in specific measurement scenarios, in order to quantify single-mode nonclassicality in a more refined way. Thus, we can study the hierarchy of three types of potentials in close analogy to the well-known hierarchy of the corresponding two-mode quantum correlations. For clarity of our presentation, we focus on the analysis of the nonclassicality potentials for arbitrary vacuum-one-photon superpositions (VOPSs), corresponding to a photon-number qubit. We discuss experimentally feasible implementations for the generation of single-mode VOPS states, their mixing with the vacuum on a balanced beam splitter, and their two-mode Wigner-function reconstruction using homodyne tomography to determine the potentials. We analyze the effects of imperfections, including phase damping and unbalanced beam splitting on the quality of the reconstructed two-mode states and nonclassicality potentials. Although we focus on the analysis of VOPS states, single-mode potentials can also be applied to study the nonclassicality of qudits or continuous-variable systems., Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures

Entanglement potentials are a promising way to quantify the nonclassicality of single-mode states. They are defined by the amount of entanglement (expressed by, e.g., the Wootters concurrence) obtained after mixing the examined single-mode state with a purely classical state; such as the vacuum or a coherent state. We generalize the idea of entanglement potentials to other quantum correlations: the EPR steering and Bell nonlocality, thus enabling us to study mutual hierarchies of these nonclassicality potentials. Instead of the usual vacuum and one-photon superposition states, we experimentally test this concept using specially tailored polarization-encoded single-photon states. One polarization encodes a given nonclassical single-mode state, while the other serves as the vacuum place-holder. This technique proves to be experimentally more convenient in comparison to the vacuum and a one-photon superposition as it does not require the vacuum detection., Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures

In this paper, we present a supervised learning technique that utilizes artificial neural networks to design new collective entanglement witnesses for two-qubit and qubit-qutrit systems. Machine-designed collective entanglement witnesses allow for continuous tuning of their sensitivity and selectivity. These witnesses are, thus, a conceptually novel instrument allowing to study the sensitivity vs. selectivity trade-off in entanglement detection. The chosen approach is also favored due to its high generality, lower number of required measurements compared to quantum tomography, and potential for superior performance with regards to other types of entanglement witnesses. Our findings could pave the way for the development of more efficient and accurate entanglement detection methods in complex quantum systems, especially considering realistic experimental imperfections., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

We analyse two quantum systems with hidden parity-time (PT) symmetry: one is an optical device, whereas another is a superconducting microwave-frequency device. To investigate their symmetry, we introduce an equilibrium frame, in which loss and gain terms for a given Hamiltonian are balanced. We show that the non-Hermitian Hamiltonians of both systems can be tuned to reach an exceptional point (EP), i.e., the point in parameter space at which a transition from broken to unbroken hidden PT symmetry takes place. We calculate a degeneracy of a Liouvillian superoperator, which is called the Liouvillian exceptional point (LEP), and show that, in the optical domain, LEP is equivalent to EP obtained from the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian (HEP). We also report breaking the equivalence between LEP and HEP by a non-zero number of thermal photons for the microwave-frequency system., Comment: This preprint has not undergone peer review or any post-submission improvements or corrections. The Version of Record of this article is published in Scientific Reports, and is available online at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-32864-2

A Werner state, which is the singlet Bell state affected by white noise, is a prototype example of states, which can reveal a hierarchy of quantum entanglement, steering, and Bell nonlocality by controlling the amount of noise. However, experimental demonstrations of this hierarchy in a sufficient and necessary way (i.e., by applying measures or universal witnesses of these quantum correlations) have been mainly based on full quantum state tomography, corresponding to measuring at least 15 real parameters of two-qubit states. Here we report an experimental demonstration of this hierarchy by measuring only six elements of a correlation matrix depending on linear combinations of two-qubit Stokes parameters. We show that our experimental setup can also reveal the hierarchy of these quantum correlations of generalized Werner states, which are any two-qubit pure states affected by white noise., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures

In this paper, we investigate how to reduce the number of measurement configurations needed for sufficiently precise entanglement quantification. Instead of analytical formulae, we employ artificial neural networks to predict the amount of entanglement in a quantum state based on results of collective measurements (simultaneous measurements on multiple instances of the investigated state). This approach allows us to explore the precision of entanglement quantification as a function of measurement configurations. For the purpose of our research, we consider general two-qubit states and their negativity as entanglement quantifier. We outline the benefits of this approach in future quantum communication networks., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures

We introduce a new approach towards generative quantum machine learning significantly reducing the number of hyperparameters and report on a proof-of-principle experiment demonstrating our approach. Our proposal depends on collaboration between the generators and discriminator, thus, we call it quantum synergic generative learning. We present numerical evidence that the synergic approach, in some cases, compares favorably to recently proposed quantum generative adversarial learning. In addition to the results obtained with quantum simulators, we also present experimental results obtained with an actual programmable quantum computer. We investigate how a quantum computer implementing generative learning algorithm could learn the concept of a Bell state. After completing the learning process, the network is able both to recognize and to generate an entangled state. Our approach can be treated as one possible preliminary step to understanding how the concept of quantum entanglement can be learned and demonstrated by a quantum computer., Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, 1 table

Quantum steering refers to correlations that can be classified as intermediate between entanglement and Bell nonlocality. Every state exhibiting Bell nonlocality exhibits also quantum steering and every state exhibiting quantum steering is also entangled. In low dimensional cases similar hierarchical relations have been observed between the temporal counterparts of these correlations. Here, we study the hierarchy of such temporal correlations for a general multilevel quantum system. We demonstrate that the same hierarchy holds for two definitions of state over time. In order to compare different types of temporal correlations, we show that temporal counterparts of Bell nonlocality and entanglement can be quantified with a temporal nonlocality robustness and temporal entanglement robustness. Our numerical result reveal that in contrast to temporal steering, for temporal nonlocality to manifest itself we require the initial state not to be in a completely mixed state., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures

We demonstrate a hierarchy of various classes of quantum correlations on experimentally prepared two-qubit Werner-like states with controllable white noise. Werner states, which are white-noise-affected Bell states, are prototypal examples for studying such a hierarchy as a function of the amount of white noise. We experimentally generated Werner states and their generalizations, i.e., partially entangled pure states affected by white noise. These states enabled us to study the hierarchy of the following classes of correlations: separability, entanglement, steering in three- and two-measurement scenarios, and Bell nonlocality. We show that the generalized Werner states (GWSs) reveal fundamentally different aspects of the hierarchy compared to the Werner states. In particular, we find five different parameter regimes of the GWSs, including those steerable in a two-measurement scenario but not violating Bell inequalities. This regime cannot be observed for the usual Werner states. Furthermore, we find threshold curves separating different regimes of the quantum correlations and find the optimal states which allow for the largest amount of white noise, which does not destroy their specific quantum correlations (e.g., unsteerable entanglement). Thus, we could identify the optimal Bell-nondiagonal GWSs, which are, for this specific meaning, more robust against white noise compared to the Bell-diagonal GWSs (i.e., Werner states)., Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures

Detection of entangled states is essential in both fundamental and applied quantum physics. However, this task proves to be challenging especially for general quantum states. One can execute full state tomography but this method is time demanding especially in complex systems. Other approaches use entanglement witnesses, these methods tend to be less demanding but lack reliability. Here, we demonstrate that ANN -- artificial neural networks provide a balance between both approaches. In this paper, we make a comparison of ANN performance against witness-based methods for random general 2-qubit quantum states without any prior information on the states. Furthermore, we apply our approach to real experimental data set., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

We study symmetries of open bosonic systems in the presence of laser pumping. Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians describing these systems can be parity-time (${\cal{PT}}$) symmetric in special cases only. Systems exhibiting this symmetry are characterised by real-valued energy spectra and can display exceptional points, where a symmetry-breaking transition occurs. We demonstrate that there is a more general type of symmetry, i.e., rotation-time (${\cal{RT}}$) symmetry. We observe that ${\cal{RT}}$-symmetric non-Hermitian Hamiltonians exhibit real-valued energy spectra which can be made singular by symmetry breaking. To calculate the spectra of the studied bosonic non-diagonalisable Hamiltonians we apply diagonalisation methods based on bosonic algebra. Finally, we list a versatile set rules allowing to immediately identifying or constructing ${\cal{RT}}$-symmetric Hamiltonians. We believe that our results on the ${\cal{RT}}$-symmetric class of bosonic systems and their spectral singularities can lead to new applications inspired by those of the ${\cal{PT}}$-symmetric systems., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures. This is a preprint of an article published in Scientific Reports. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-76787-8

We discuss how introducing an equilibrium frame, in which a given Hamiltonian has balanced loss and gain terms, can reveal PT symmetry hidden in non-Hermitian Hamiltonians of dissipative systems. Passive PT-symmetric Hamiltonians, in which only loss is present and gain is absent, can also display exceptional points, just like PT-symmetric systems, and therefore are extensively investigated. We demonstrate that non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, which can be divided into a PT-symmetric term and a term commuting with the Hamiltonian, possess hidden PT symmetries. These symmetries become apparent in the equilibrium frame. We also show that the number of eigenstates having the same value in an exceptional point is usually smaller in the initial frame than in the equilibrium frame. This property is associated with the second part of the Hamiltonian., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures

The paper reports on experimental diagnostics of entanglement swapping protocol by means of collective entanglement witness. Our approach is suitable to detect disturbances occurring in the preparation of quantum states, quantum communication channel and imperfect Bell-state projection. More specifically we demonstrate that our method can distinguish disturbances such as depolarization, phase-damping, amplitude-damping and imperfect Bell-state measurement by observing four probabilities and estimating collective entanglement witness. Since entanglement swapping is a key procedure for quantum repeaters, quantum relays, device-independent quantum communications or entanglement assisted error correction, this can aid in faster and practical resolution of quality-of-transmission related problems as our approach requires less measurements then other means of diagnostics., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

We report on experimental measurement of the Hilbert-Schmidt distance between two two-qubit states by many-particle interference. We demonstrate that our three-step method for measuring distances in Hilbert space is far less complex than reconstructing density matrices and that it can be applied in quantum-enhanced machine learning to reduce the complexity of calculating Euclidean distances between multidimensional points, which can be especially interesting for near term quantum technologies and quantum artificial intelligence research. Our results are also a novel example of applying mixed states in quantum information processing. Usually working with mixed states is undesired, but here it gives the possibility of encoding extra information as coherence between given two dimensions of the density matrix., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures (extended bibliography)

We report on experimental implementation of a machine-learned quantum gate driven by a classical control. The gate learns optimal phase-covariant cloning in a reinforcement learning scenario having fidelity of the clones as reward. In our experiment, the gate learns to achieve nearly optimal cloning fidelity allowed for this particular class of states. This makes it a proof of present-day feasibility and practical applicability of the hybrid machine learning approach combining quantum information processing with classical control. Moreover, our experiment can be directly generalized to larger interferometers where the computational cost of classical computer is much lower than the cost of boson sampling., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures

We implement an all-optical setup demonstrating kernel-based quantum machine learning for two-dimensional classification problems. In this hybrid approach, kernel evaluations are outsourced to projective measurements on suitably designed quantum states encoding the training data, while the model training is processed on a classical computer. Our two-photon proposal encodes data points in a discrete, eight-dimensional feature Hilbert space. In order to maximize the application range of the deployable kernels, we optimize feature maps towards the resulting kernels' ability to separate points, i.e., their resolution, under the constraint of finite, fixed Hilbert space dimension. Implementing these kernels, our setup delivers viable decision boundaries for standard nonlinear supervised classification tasks in feature space. We demonstrate such kernel-based quantum machine learning using specialized multiphoton quantum optical circuits. The deployed kernel exhibits exponentially better scaling in the required number of qubits than a direct generalization of kernels described in the literature., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

Weak values are traditionally obtained using a weak interaction between the measured system and a pointer state. It has, however, been pointed out that weak coupling can be replaced by a carefully tailored strong interaction. This paper provides a direct comparison of two strong interaction-based approaches (strong interaction accompanied by either a suitably prepared pointer state or quantum erasure) and the traditional weak interaction-based method. Presented theoretical derivations explicitly prove analytical equivalence of these approaches which was subsequently certified by an experiment implemented on the platform of linear optics. We find that strong-interaction-based measurements are experimentally less demanding on this platform., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures

The measures of distances between points in a Hilbert space are one of the basic theoretical concepts used to characterize properties of a quantum system with respect to some etalon state. These are not only used in studying fidelity of signal transmission and basic quantum phenomena but also applied in measuring quantum correlations, and also in quantum machine learning. The values of quantum distance measures are very difficult to determine without completely reconstructing the state. Here we demonstrate an interferometric approach to measuring distances between quantum states that in some cases can outperform quantum state tomography. We propose a direct experimental method to estimate such distance measures between two unknown two-qubit mixed states as Uhlmann-Jozsa fidelity (or the Bures distance), the Hilbert-Schmidt distance, and the trace distance. The fidelity is estimated via the measurement of the upper and lower bounds of the fidelity, which are referred to as the superfidelity and subfidelity, respectively. Our method is based on the multiparticle interactions (i.e., interference) between copies of the unknown pairs of qubits., Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, 3 tables

The concept of quantum money (QM) was proposed by Wiesner in the 1970s. Its main advantage is that every attempt to copy QM unavoidably leads to imperfect counterfeits. In the Wiesner's protocol, quantum banknotes need to be delivered to the issuing bank for verification. Thus, QM requires quantum communication which range is limited by noise and losses. Recently, Bozzio et al. (2018) have demonstrated experimentally how to replace challenging quantum verification with a classical channel and a quantum retrieval game (QRG). This brings QM significantly closer to practical realisation, but still thorough analysis of the revised scheme QM is required before it can be considered secure. We address this problem by presenting a proof-of-concept attack on QRG-based QM schemes, where we show that even imperfect quantum cloning can, under some circumstances, provide enough information to break a QRG-based QM scheme., Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures

The paper discusses technical aspects of constructing a highly versatile multi-photon source. The source is able to generate up to four photons which is sufficient for a large number of quantum communications protocols. It can be set to generate separable, partially-entangled or maximally-entangled photon pairs with tunable amount of purity. Furthermore, the two generated pairs can be prepared in different quantum states. In this paper, we provide all the necessary information needed for construction and alignment of the source. To prove the working principle, we also provide results of thorough testing., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures

We demonstrate that non-linear entanglement witnesses can be made particularly useful for entanglement detection in hyper-entangled or multilevel states. We test this idea experimentally on the platform of linear optics using a hyper-entangled state of two photons. Instead of several simultaneous copies of two-photon entangled states, one can directly measure the witness on single copy of a hyper-entangled state. Our results indicate that hyper-entanglement can be used for quick entanglement detection and it provides a practical testbed for experiments with non-linear entanglement witnesses., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures

In this paper, we report on experimental implementation of a linear-optical quantum router. Our device allows single-photon polarization-encoded qubits to be routed coherently into two spatial output modes depending on the state of two identical control qubits. The polarization qubit state of the routed photon is maintained during the routing operation. The success probability of our scheme can be increased up to 25% making it the most efficient linear-optical quantum router known to this date., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures + supplement

We experimentally demonstrate the migration of coherence between composite quantum systems and their subsystems. The quantum systems are implemented using polarization states of photons in two experimental setups. The first setup is based on linear optical controlled-phase quantum gate and the second scheme is utilizing effects of nonlinear optics. Our experiment allows to verify the relation between correlations of the subsystems and the coherence of the composite system, which was given in terms of a conservation law for maximal accessible coherence by Svozil\'ik \emph{et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 115}, 220501 (2015)]. We observe that the maximal accessible coherence is conserved for the implemented class of global evolutions of the composite system., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

We describe a direct method to experimentally determine local two-qubit invariants by performing interferometric measurements on multiple copies of a given two-qubit state. We use this framework to analyze two different kinds of two-qubit invariants of Makhlin and Jing et. al. These invariants allow to fully reconstruct any two-qubit state up to local unitaries. We demonstrate that measuring 3 invariants is sufficient to find, e.g., the optimal Bell inequality violation. These invariants can be measured with local or nonlocal measurements. We show that the nonlocal strategy that follows from Makhlin's invariants is more resource-efficient than local strategy following from the invariants of Jing et al. To measure all of the Makhlin's invariants directly one needs to use both two-qubit singlet and three-qubit W-state projections on multiple copies of the two-qubit state. This problem is equivalent to a cordinate system handness measurement. We demonstrate that these 3-qubit measurements can be performed by utilizing Hong-Ou-Mandel interference which gives significant speedup in comparison to the classical handness measurement. Finally, we point to potential application of our results in quantum secret sharing., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables

In this paper, we develop a simple model describing inherent photon-number noise in Rarity-Tapster type interferometers. This noise is caused by generating photon pairs in the process of spontaneous parametric down-conversion and adding a third photon by attenuating fundamental laser mode to single-photon level. We experimentally verify our model and present resulting signal to noise ratios as well as obtained three-photon generation rates as functions of various setup parameters. Subsequently we evaluate impact of this particular source of noise on quantum teleportation which is a key quantum information protocol using this interferometric configuration., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures

We describe a direct method for experimental determination of the negativity of an arbitrary two-qubit state with 11 measurements performed on multiple copies of the two-qubit system. Our method is based on the experimentally accessible sequences of singlet projections performed on up to four qubit pairs. In particular, our method permits the application of the Peres-Horodecki separability criterion to an arbitrary two-qubit state. We explicitly demonstrate that measuring entanglement in terms of negativity requires three measurements more than detecting two-qubit entanglement. The reported minimal set of interferometric measurements provides a complete description of bipartite quantum entanglement in terms of two-photon interference. This set is smaller than the set of 15 measurements needed to perform a complete quantum state tomography of an arbitrary two-qubit system. Finally, we demonstrate that the set of 9 Makhlin's invariants needed to express the negativity can be measured by performing 13 multicopy projections. We demonstrate that these invariants are both a useful theoretical concept for designing specialized quantum interferometers and that their direct measurement within the framework of linear optics does not require performing complete quantum state tomography., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 1 table

We demonstrate an efficient experimental procedure based on entanglement swapping to determine the Bell nonlocality measure of Horodecki et al. [Phys. Lett. A 200, 340 (1995)] and the fully-entangled fraction of Bennett et al. [Phys. Rev. A 54, 3824 (1996)] of an arbitrary two-qubit polarization-encoded state. The nonlocality measure corresponds to the amount of the violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) optimized over all measurement settings. By using simultaneously two copies of a given state, we measure directly only six parameters. Our method requires neither full quantum state tomography of 15 parameters nor continuous scanning of the measurement bases used by two parties in the usual CHSH inequality tests with four measurements in each optimization step. We analyze how well the measured degrees of Bell nonlocality and other entanglement witnesses (including the fully-entangled fraction and a nonlinear entropic witness) of an arbitrary two-qubit state can estimate its entanglement. In particular, we measured these witnesses and estimated the negativity of various two-qubit Werner states. Our approach could especially be useful for quantum communication protocols based on entanglement swapping., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

We describe how an ensemble of four-level atoms in the diamond-type configuration can be applied to create a fully controllable effective coupling between two cavity modes. The diamond-type configuration allows one to use a bimodal cavity that supports modes of different frequencies or different circular polarisations, because each mode is coupled only to its own transition. This system can be used for mapping a quantum state of one cavity mode onto the other mode on demand. Additionally, it can serve as a fast opening high-Q cavity system that can be easily and coherently controlled with laser fields., Comment: This is a pre-print of an article published in Scientific Reports. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32989-9

In the year 2013, Danan et al. published a paper [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 240402 (2013)] demonstrating a counterintuitive behavior of photons in nested Mach-Zehnder interferometers. The authors then proposed an explanation based on the two-state vector formalism. This experiment and the authors' explanation raised a vivid debate within the scientific community. In this paper, we contribute to the ongoing debate by presenting an alternative experimental implementation of the Danan et al. scheme. We show that no counterintuitive behavior is observed when performing direct spectrally-resolved detection., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures

Unknown quantum information cannot be perfectly copied (cloned). This statement is the bedrock of quantum technologies and quantum cryptography, including the seminal scheme of Wiesner's quantum money, which was the first quantum-cryptographic proposal. Surprisingly, to our knowledge, quantum money has not been tested experimentally yet. Here, we experimentally revisit the Wiesner idea, assuming a banknote to be an image encoded in the polarization states of single photons. We demonstrate that it is possible to use quantum states to prepare a banknote that cannot be ideally copied without making the owner aware of only unauthorized actions. We provide the security conditions for quantum money by investigating the physically-achievable limits on the fidelity of 1-to-2 copying of arbitrary sequences of qubits. These results can be applied as a security measure in quantum digital right management., Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures

Temporal steering is a form of temporal correlation between the initial and final state of a quantum system. It is a temporal analogue of the famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (spatial) steering. We demonstrate, by measuring the photon polarization, that temporal steering allows two parties to verify if they have been interacting with the same particle, even if they have no information about what happened with the particle in between the measurements. This is the first experimental study of temporal steering. We also performed experimental tests, based on the violation of temporal steering inequalities, of the security of two quantum key distribution protocols against individual attacks. Thus, these results can lead to applications for secure quantum communications and quantum engineering., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures. Our article arXiv:1503.00612v3 was extended and split into arXiv:1503.00612v4 and this article

We present a proof-of-principle experiment demonstrating measurement of the collectibility, a nonlinear entanglement witness proposed by Rudnicki et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 150502 (2011)]. This entanglement witness works for both mixed and pure two-qubit states. In the later case it can be used to measure entanglement in terms of the negativity. We measured the collectibility for three distinct classes of photonic polarization-encoded two-qubit states, i.e., maximally entangled, separable and maximally mixed states. We demonstrate that the measurement procedure is feasible and robust against typical experimental shortcomings such as imperfect two-photon indistinguishability., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

If a single-mode nonclassical light is combined with the vacuum on a beam splitter, then the output state is entangled. As proposed in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 173602 (2005)], by measuring the output-state entanglement for a balanced lossless beam splitter, one can quantify the input-state nonclassicality. These measures of nonclassicality (referred to as entanglement potentials) can be based, in principle, on various entanglement measures, leading to the negativity (NP) and concurrence (CP) potentials, and the potential for the relative entropy of entanglement (REEP). We search for the maximal nonclassicality, which can be achieved by comparing two entanglement measures for arbitrary two-qubit states and those which can be generated from a photon-number qubit via a balanced lossless beam-splitter, where the qubit basis states are the vacuum and single-photon states. Surprisingly, we find that the maximal nonclassicality, measured by the REEP for a given value of the NP, can be increased (if NP<0.527) by using either a tunable beam splitter or by amplitude damping of the output state of the balanced beam splitter. We also show that the maximal nonclassicality, measured by the NP for a given value of the REEP, can be increased by dephasing. The entanglement itself is not increased by these local losses, but the possible ratios of different measures are affected. Moreover, we show that partially-mixed states can be more nonclassical than both pure states and completely-mixed states, by comparing the NP for a given value of the REEP. This implies that not all entanglement measures can be used as entanglement potentials. Alternatively, a single balanced lossless beam splitter is not always transferring the whole nonclassicality of its input state into the entanglement of its output modes. Applying a lossy beam splitter can solve this problem at least for the cases analyzed in this paper., Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures

In standard optical tomographic methods, the off-diagonal elements of a density matrix $\rho$ are measured indirectly. Thus, the reconstruction of $\rho$, even if it is based on linear inversion, typically magnifies small errors in the experimental data. Recently, an optimal tomography [Phys. Rev. A 90, 062123 (2014)] has been proposed theoretically to measure one-by-one all the elements of $\rho$. Thus, the relative errors in the reconstructed state can be the same as those in the experimental data. We implemented this method for two-qubit polarization states performing both local and global measurements. For comparison, we also experimentally implemented other well-known tomographic protocols based solely on local measurements (of, e.g., the Pauli operators and James-Kwiat-Munro-White projectors) and those with mutually unbiased bases requiring both local and global measurements. We reconstructed seventeen of two-qubit polarization states including separable, partially and maximally entangled. Our experiments show the highest stability against errors of our method in comparison to the other quantum tomographies. In particular, we demonstrate that each optimally-reconstructed state} is embedded in the uncertainty circle of the smallest radius, both in terms of the trace distance and disturbance. We explain how to estimate experimentally the uncertainty radii for all the implemented tomographies and show that, for each reconstructed state, the relevant uncertainty circles intersect indicating the approximate location of the corresponding physical density matrix., Comment: 24 (6+18) pages, 4 figures

We present a linear-optical scheme for a controlled-phase gate with tunable phase shift programmed by a qubit state. In contrast to all previous tunable controlled-phase gates, the phase shift is not hard-coded into the optical setup, but can be tuned to any value from 0 to pi by the state of a so-called program qubit. Our setup is feasible with current level of technology using only linear-optical components. We provide an experimental feasibility study to assess the gate's implementability. We also discuss options for increasing the success probability up to 1/12 which approaches the success probability of a optimal non-programmable tunable controlled-phase gate., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures

Temporal steering, which is a temporal analogue of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering, refers to temporal quantum correlations between the initial and final state of a quantum system. Our analysis of temporal steering inequalities in relation to the average quantum bit error rates reveals the interplay between temporal steering and quantum cloning, which guarantees the security of quantum key-distribution based on mutually-unbiased bases against individual attacks. The key distributions analyzed here include the Bennett-Brassard 1984 protocol (BB84) and the six-state 1998 protocol by Bruss (B98). Moreover, we define a temporal steerable weight, which enables us to identify a kind of monogamy of temporal correlations that is essential to quantum cryptography and useful for analyzing various scenarios of quantum causality., Comment: 8 pages

A bosonic state is commonly considered nonclassical (or quantum) if its Glauber-Sudarshan $P$ function is not a classical probability density, which implies that only coherent states and their statistical mixtures are classical. We quantify the nonclassicality of a single qubit, defined by the vacuum and single-photon states, by applying the following four well-known measures of nonclassicality: (1) the nonclassical depth, $\tau$, related to the minimal amount of Gaussian noise which changes a nonpositive $P$ function into a positive one; (2) the nonclassical distance $D$, defined as the Bures distance of a given state to the closest classical state, which is the vacuum for the single-qubit Hilbert space; together with (3) the negativity potential (NP) and (4) concurrence potential, which are the nonclassicality measures corresponding to the entanglement measures (i.e., the negativity and concurrence, respectively) for the state generated by mixing a single-qubit state with the vacuum on a balanced beam splitter. We show that complete statistical mixtures of the vacuum and single-photon states are the most nonclassical single-qubit states regarding the distance $D$ for a fixed value of both the depth $\tau$ and NP in the whole range $[0,1]$ of their values, as well as the NP for a given value of $\tau$ such that $\tau>0.3154$. Conversely, pure states are the most nonclassical single-qubit states with respect to $\tau$ for a given $D$, NP versus $D$, and $\tau$ versus NP. We also show the "relativity" of these nonclassicality measures by comparing pairs of single-qubit states: if a state is less nonclassical than another state according to some measure then it might be more nonclassical according to another measure. Moreover, we find that the concurrence potential is equal to the nonclassical distance for single-qubit states., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, and 3 tables

We describe a direct method to determine the negativity of an arbitrary two-qubit state in experiments. The method is derived by analyzing the relation between the purity, negativity, and a universal entanglement witness for two-qubit entanglement. We show how the negativity of a two-qubit state can be calculated from just three experimentally accessible moments of the partially transposed density matrix of a two-photon state. Moreover, we show that the negativity can be given as a function of only six invariants, which are linear combinations of nine invariants from the complete set of 21 fundamental and independent two-qubit invariants. We analyze the relation between these moments and the concurrence for some classes of two-qubit states (including the X states, as well as pure states affected by the amplitude-damping and phase-damping channels). We also discuss the possibility of using the universal entanglement witness as an entanglement measure for various classes of two-qubit states. Moreover, we analyze how noise affects the estimation of entanglement via this witness., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables

Linear-optical interferometers play a key role in designing circuits for quantum information processing and quantum communications. Even though nested Mach-Zehnder interferometers appear easy to describe, there are occasions when they provide unintuitive results. This paper explains the results of a highly discussed experiment performed by Danan et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 240402 (2013)] using a standard approach. We provide a simple and intuitive one-state vector formalism capable of interpreting their experiment. Additionally, we cross-checked our model with a classical-physics based approach and found that both models are in complete agreement. We argue that the quantity used in the mentioned experiment is not a suitable which-path witness producing seemingly contra-intuitive results. To circumvent this issue, we establish a more reliable which-path witness and show that it yields well expected outcomes of the experiment., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure

We show that it is possible to reduce the number of two-qubit gates needed for the construction of an arbitrary controlled-unitary transformation by up to two times using a tunable controlled-phase gate. On the platform of linear optics, where two-qubit gates can only be achieved probabilistically, our method significantly reduces the amount of components and increases success probability of a two-qubit gate. The experimental implementation of our technique presented in this paper for a controlled single-qubit unitary gate demonstrates that only one tunable controlled-phase gate is needed instead of two standard controlled-NOT gates. Thus, not only do we increase success probability by about one order of magnitude (with the same resources), but also avoid the need for conducting quantum non-demolition measurement otherwise required to join two probabilistic gates. Subsequently, we generalize our method to a higher order, showing that n-times controlled gates can be optimized by replacing blocks of controlled-NOT gates with tunable controlled-phase gates., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures

We present an error analysis of various tomographic protocols based on the linear inversion for the reconstruction of an unknown two-qubit state. We solve the problem of finding a tomographic protocol which is the most robust against errors in terms of the lowest value (i.e., equal to 1) of a condition number, as required by the Gastinel-Kahan theorem. In contrast, standard tomographic protocols, including those based on mutually unbiased bases, are nonoptimal for determining all 16 elements of an unknown two-qubit density matrix. Our method is based on the measurements of the 16 generalized Pauli operators, where twelve of them can be locally measured, and the other four require nonlocal Bell measurements. Our method corresponds to selectively measuring, one by one, all of the real and imaginary elements of an unknown two-qubit density matrix. We describe two experimentally feasible setups of this protocol for the optimal reconstruction of two photons in an unknown polarization state using conventional detectors and linear-optical elements. Moreover, we define the operators for the optimal reconstruction of the states of multiqubit or multilevel (qudit) systems., Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, 3 tables

Detecting and quantifying quantum entanglement of a given unknown state poses problems that are fundamentally important for quantum information processing. Surprisingly, no direct (i.e., without quantum tomography) universal experimental implementation of a necessary and sufficient test of entanglement has been designed even for a general two-qubit state. Here we propose an experimental method for detecting a collective universal witness, which is a necessary and sufficient test of two-photon polarization entanglement. It allows us to detect entanglement for any two-qubit mixed state and to establish tight upper and lower bounds on its amount. A different element of this method is the sequential character of its main components, which allows us to obtain relatively complicated information about quantum correlations with the help of simple linear-optical elements. As such, this proposal realizes a universal two-qubit entanglement test within the present state of the art of quantum optics. We show the optimality of our setup with respect to the minimal number of measured quantities., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures

In this paper we investigate the capability of quantum routing (quantum state fusion) to implement two useful quantum communications protocols. The analyzed protocols include quantum authentication of quantum messages and non-destructive linear-optical Bell state manipulation. We also present the concept of quantum decoupler -- a device implementing an inverse operation to quantum routing. We demonstrate that both quantum router and decoupler can work as specialized disentangling gates., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures

We demonstrate that a phase-independent quantum amplifier of a polarization qubit is a complementary amplifier of the heralded qubit amplifier [N. Gisin, S. Pironio and N. Sangouard, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 070501 (2010)]. It employs the multi-functional cloner in 1 to 2 copying regime, capable of providing approximate copies of qubits given by various probability distributions, and is optimized for distributions with axial symmetry. Direct applications of the proposed solution are possible in quantum technologies, doubling the range where quantum information is coherently broadcast. It also outperforms natural nonlinear amplifiers that use stimulated emission in bulk nonlinear materials. We consider the amplifier to be an important tool for amplifying quantum information sent via quantum channels with phase-independent damping., Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures (Fig.1 fixed)

We propose a linear-optical setup for heralded qubit amplification with tunable output qubit fidelity. We study its success probability as a function of output qubit fidelity showing that at the expense of lower fidelity, the setup can considerably increase probability of successful operation. These results are subsequently applied in a proposal for state dependent qubit amplification. Similarly to state-dependent quantum cloning, the a priori information about the input state allows to optimize the qubit amplification procedure to obtain better fidelity versus success probability trade-off., Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures