Conditional preparation of non-Gaussian quantum optical states by mesoscopic measurement

Abstract

Non-Gaussian states of an optical field are important as a proposed resource in quantum information applications. While conditional preparation is a highly successful approach to preparing such states, their quality is limited by detector non-idealities such as dead time, narrow dynamic range, limited quantum efficiency and dark noise. Mesoscopic photon counters, with peak performance at higher photon number, offer many practical advantages over single-photon level conditioning detectors. Here we propose a novel approach involving displacement of the ancilla field into the regime where mesoscopic detectors can be used. We explore this strategy theoretically and present simulations accounting for experimental non-idealities such as loss and amplification noise, showing that precise photon-number resolution is not necessary to herald highly nonclassical states. We conclude that states with strong Wigner negativity can be prepared at high rates by this technique under experimentally attainable conditions.

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• Detection of 15 dB Squeezed States of Light and their Application for the Absolute Calibration of Photoelectric Quantum Efficiency
• Heralded Generation of Ultrafast Single Photons in Pure Quantum States
• Experimental generation of multi-photon Fock states
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Non-Gaussian Quantum States and Where to Find Them
• Seeding Gaussian boson samplers with single photons for enhanced state generation
• Quantifying protocol efficiency: a thermodynamic figure of merit for classical and quantum state-transfer protocols
• Latent optical nonclassicality of conditionally prepared states