Projection Measurement of the Maximally Entangled N-Photon State for a Demonstration of N-Photon de Broglie Wavelength

Abstract

We construct a projection measurement process for the maximally entangled N-photon state (the NOON-state) with only linear optical elements and photodetectors. This measurement process will give null result for any N-photon state that is orthogonal to the NOON state. We examine the projection process in more detail for N=4 by applying it to a four-photon state from type-II parametric down-conversion. This demonstrates an orthogonal projection measurement with a null result. This null result corresponds to a dip in a generalized Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer for four photons. We find that the depth of the dip in this arrangement can be used to distinguish a genuine entangled four-photon state from two separate pairs of photons. We next apply the NOON state projection measurement to a four-photon superposition state from two perpendicularly oriented type-I parametric down-conversion processes. A successful NOON state projection is demonstrated with the appearance of the four-photon de Broglie wavelength in the interference fringe pattern.

8 pages, 3 figures, new title, some content change, replaced Fig.1

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Cited by in corpus (19)

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• Demonstration of Temporal Distinguishability in a Four-Photon State and a Six-Photon State
• Quantum interferometers: principles and applications
• Multi-Photon Interference and Temporal Distinguishability of Photons
• Conditional generation of path-entangled optical NOON states
• Preparation of entangled states of two photons in several spatial modes
• Characterizing Temporal Distinguishability of an N-Photon State by Generalized Photon Bunching Effect with Multi-Photon Interference
• Demonstration of Controllable Temporal Distinguishability in a Three-Photon State
• Polarization squeezing and multipartite entanglement of triphoton states
• Generating entanglement of photon-number states with coherent light via cross-Kerr nonlinearity
• Entanglement and interference between different degrees of freedom of photons states
• Synthesis of arbitrary, two-mode, high visibility N-photon interference patterns
• Permutation asymmetry inducing entanglement between degrees of freedom in multiphoton states
• Scalable Generation of Multi-mode NOON States for Quantum Multiple-phase Estimation
• The Role of Symmetry in Generalized Hong-Ou-Mandel Interference and Quantum Metrology