Universal state orthogonalizer and qubit generator

Abstract

The superposition principle is at the heart of quantum mechanics and at the root of many paradoxes arising when trying to extend its predictions to our everyday world. Schroedinger's cat is the prototype of such paradoxes and here, in contrast to many others, we choose to investigate it from the operational point of view. We experimentally demonstrate a universal strategy for producing an unambiguously distinguishable type of superposition, that of an arbitrary pure state and its orthogonal. It relies on only a limited amount of information about the input state to first generate its orthogonal one. Then, a simple change in the experimental parameters is used to produce arbitrary superpositions of the mutually orthogonal states. Constituting a sort of Schroedinger's black box, able to turn a whole zoo of input states into coherent superpositions, our scheme can produce arbitrary continuous-variable optical qubits, which may prove practical for implementing quantum technologies and measurement tasks.

6 pages, 3 figures

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• Measuring higher-order photon correlations of faint quantum light: a short review
• Quantum Gram-Schmidt Processes and Their Application to Efficient State Read-out for Quantum Algorithms
• Quantum manipulation of a two-level mechanical system
• Feedforward-enhanced Fock state conversion with linear optics
• Effect of dissipative environment on collapses and revivals of a nonlinear quantum oscillator
• Qubit-Programmable Operations on Quantum Light Fields