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ABSTRACT: We study partially coherent fields that have a coherent-mode representation in the orbital-angular-momentum-mode basis. For such fields, we introduce the concepts of the angular coherence function and the coherence angle. Such fields are naturally produced by the process of parametric down-conversion—a second-order nonlinear optical process in which a pump photon breaks up into two entangled photons, known as the signal and idler photons. We show that the angular coherence functions of the signal and idler fields are directly related to the angular Schmidt (spiral) spectrum of the down-converted two-photon field and thus that the angular Schmidt spectrum can be measured directly by measuring the angular coherence function of either the signal or the idler field, without requiring coincidence detection.
Phys. Rev. A. 12/2011; 84(6).
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ABSTRACT: We show that the use of entangled photons having non-zero orbital angular momentum (OAM) increases the resolution and sensitivity of angular-displacement measurements performed using an interferometer. By employing a 4$\times$4 matrix formulation to study the propagation of entangled OAM modes, we analyze measurement schemes for two and four entangled photons and obtain explicit expressions for the resolution and sensitivity in these schemes. We find that the resolution of angular-displacement measurements scales as $Nl$ while the angular sensitivity increases as $1/(2Nl)$, where $N$ is the number of entangled photons and $l$ the magnitude of the orbital-angular-momentum mode index. These results are an improvement over what could be obtained with $N$ non-entangled photons carrying an orbital angular momentum of $l\hbar$ per photon Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures
11/2010;
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ABSTRACT: Using angular-position-orbital-angular-momentum entangled photons, we study angular two-photon interference in a scheme in which entangled photons are made to pass through apertures in the form of double angular slits, and using this scheme, we demonstrate an entangled two-qubit state that is based on the angular-position correlations of entangled photons. The entanglement of the two-qubit state is quantified in terms of concurrence. These results provide an additional means for preparing entangled quantum states for use in quantum information protocols.
Physical Review Letters 01/2010; 104(1):010501. · 7.37 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Using the signal and idler photons produced by parametric down-conversion, we report an experimental observation of a violation of the Bell inequality for energy and time based purely on the geometric phases of the signal and idler photons. We thus show that energy-time entanglement between the signal and idler photons can be explored by means of their geometric phases. These results may have important practical implications for quantum information science by providing an additional means by which entanglement can be manipulated.
Physical Review Letters 11/2008; 101(18):180405. · 7.37 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: We show that temporal two-photon interference effects involving the signal and idler photons created by parametric down-conversion can be fully characterized in terms of the variations of two length parameters—called the biphoton path-length difference and the biphoton path-asymmetry-length difference—which we construct using the six different length parameters that a general two-photon interference experiment involves. We perform an experiment in which the effects of the variations of these two parameters can be independently controlled and studied. In our experimental setup, which does not involve mixing of signal and idler photons at a beam splitter, we further report observations of Hong-Ou-Mandel- (HOM-)like effects both in coincidence and in one-photon count rates. As an important consequence, we argue that the HOM and the HOM-like effects are best described as observations of how two-photon coherence changes as a function of the biphoton path-asymmetry-length difference.
Phys. Rev. A. 01/2008; 77(2).
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ABSTRACT: We describe how quantum features of light fields become modified upon propagation through absorbing and amplifying media. Both absorption and amplification add noise to a beam of light. We examine the extent to which quantum features remain after this noise is added. We also examine the question of whether certain quantum states are more robust than others against degradation due to loss. Quantum states of this sort would constitute an important resource for use in quantum information processing. We quantify this thought by determining how the integration time required to achieve a specified signal-to-noise ratio increases in the presence of transmission losses. We find that under certain circumstances the required integration time increases more rapidly with transmission loss for measurement strategies based on coincidence detection of entangled photons than for strategies based on the properties of squeezed light.
Optics Communications.
