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Entanglement with negative Wigner function of three thousand atoms heralded by one photon
Name
McConnell_2016_J._Phys.__Conf._Ser._723_012054.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.79 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
aad3093ac420a4c8ddd07b667c3697d4
Author(s)
McConnell, Robert
Zhang, Hao
Hu, Jiazhong
Ćuk, Senka
Vuletić, Vladan
Date Issued
June 2016
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Citation
McConnell, Robert, Zhang, Hao, Hu, Jiazhong, Ćuk, Senka and Vuletić, Vladan. 2016. "Entanglement with negative Wigner function of three thousand atoms heralded by one photon." 723.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Quantum-mechanically correlated (entangled) states of many particles are of interest in quantum information, quantum computing and quantum metrology. Metrologically useful entangled states of large atomic ensembles have been experimentally realized [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10], but these states display Gaussian spin distribution functions with a non-negative Wigner function. Non-Gaussian entangled states have been produced in small ensembles of ions [11, 12], and very recently in large atomic ensembles [13, 14, 15]. Here, we generate entanglement in a large atomic ensemble via the interaction with a very weak laser pulse; remarkably, the detection of a single photon prepares several thousand atoms in an entangled state. We reconstruct a negative-valued Wigner function, an important hallmark of nonclassicality, and verify an entanglement depth (minimum number of mutually entangled atoms) of 2910 190 out of 3100 atoms. Attaining such a negative Wigner function and the mutual entanglement of virtually all atoms is unprecedented for an ensemble containing more than a few particles. While the achieved purity of the state is slightly below the threshold for entanglement-induced metrological gain, further technical improvement should allow the generation of states that surpass this threshold, and of more complex Schrödinger cat states for quantum metrology and information processing.
Subjects
General Physics and Astronomy
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 unported license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
10.1088/1742-6596/723/1/012054
