Production of superpositions of coherent states in traveling optical fields with inefficient photon detection
- 1 July 2005
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review A
- Vol. 72 (1), 013801
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.72.013801
Abstract
We develop an all-optical scheme to generate superpositions of macroscopically distinguishable coherent states in traveling optical fields. It nondeterministically distills coherent-state superpositions (CSS’s) with large amplitudes out of CSS’s with small amplitudes using inefficient photon detection. The small CSS’s required to produce CSS’s with larger amplitudes are extremely well approximated by squeezed single photons. We discuss some remarkable features of this scheme: it effectively purifies mixed initial states emitted from inefficient single-photon sources and boosts negativity of Wigner functions of quantum states.Keywords
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