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Nonlinear Properties of "Linear" Amplifiers: University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250 USA
Nonlinear Properties of "Linear" Amplifiers: University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250 USA
x=
gxin + N .
out
(1)
in
in
+ e i 0
)0
(2)
/ 2.
Here we have assumed that the idler mode of the OPA is initially
in its vacuum state 0i . The normalization of Eq. (2) also
assumes that is sufficiently large that there is negligible
overlap between the two coherent-state components.
(e
nonlinear
crystal
signal
pump
amplified
output
idler
D1
laser
D2
idler
0
K
amp
homodyne
2
The amplification will also displace the idler mode in accordance
with the relations [7,8]
given by
out = gin + g 1 p in ,
where is the other phase quadrature for the idler. This creates
entanglement between the signal and the idler modes, since the
idler mode is displaced in different directions in phase space for
the two Schrodinger cat state components, as illustrated by the
red and blue colors in Fig. 3c. It is important to note that the
change in the idler can be much larger than the change in the
g 2 1 2 >> for << 1 .
p
(b)
+ ei '
) 0i
/ 23/2.
(4)
1
P = cos2 ( / 2).
2
(a)
( '+
(c)
=
'
(3)
signal, since
=
''
(d)
(5)
where
''
( ''+
i+ + ei '' i / 23/2 ,
(6)
is the
N =
g 2 1qin 0 and xout = xin from Eq. (1). It can be
shown that p out = p in as well. As a result, one might expect that
there should be no significant change in the field due to the
amplifier. But the magnitude of the displacement of the idler
mode from Eq. (3) is given by g 2 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | >> 1 .
Because the displacement of the idler in phase space is much
larger than the width of its Gaussian distribution, the idler
overlap i+ i will be exponentially small and the visibility will
approach zero in that limit, in contrast to what might be expected
from Eq. (1).
Eq. (6) is only approximate because it assumes a product
state between the corresponding signal and idler modes. The
effects of the amplification can be calculated exactly using the
3
two-mode Husimi-Kano quasiprobability distribution [13-15]
defined by
Q ( , )
(7)
S ( r ) e iH ' t / =
e r ( ab a b ) .
and
denote arbitrary coherent states in the signal and idler modes, and
is short-hand notation for . Earlier papers [1627] on the amplification of Schrodinger cat states did not
consider the interferometer shown in Fig. 2.
After the first single-photon interferometer and before
the amplifier, the density matrix corresponding to the pure state
of Eq. (2) is given by
= ++ + + + + + ,
(8)
(13)
g 2 1a b / g
g ( a a +b b ) e
/ g
g 2 1ab
(14)
Q+ ( , ) =
1
S ( r ) 0i +
2 2
)(
0i S ( r ) .
(15)
where
ei 0 0i 0i ei 0 / 2
++ =
=
+ +
ei 0 0i 0i e i 0 / 2
+ =
=
+
e i 0 0i 0i ei 0 / 2
+ =
=
+
(9)
(10)
where
Q+ ( , )
1
+ ,
2
(11)
a b ).
=
H ' i ( ab
(12)
Here a and b are the annihilation operators for the signal and
idler modes, respectively, while is a parameter that reflects
the strength of the interaction. The time evolution operator S ( r )
=
0 exp[ | |2 /2] , the first factor f + on the right-hand side
of Eq. (15) can be rewritten as
e i 0 0i 0i e i 0 / 2.
=
=
Q ( , ) = Q++ ( , ) + Q+ ( , ) + Q+ ( , ) + Q ( , ),
and = e i 0 .
f + S ( r ) 0i +
1
(g )
e
e
)=
g
| |2 /2 g 2 1 * */ g
a a
(16)
By expanding the coherent states and + in the
number-state basis, it can be shown that Eq. (16) is equivalent to
f+ =
1 | | /2 |
e
e
g
2
2
+ | /2
e | | /2 e
g 2 1 * */ g * + / g
(17)
Q+ ( , ) =
1
e | | e
2 2 g 2
2
e | | e |
2
+ | /2
g 2 1( * *+ )/ g
e | | /2 e( *
+ + *)/ g
(18)
The same procedure can be used to find the three other terms in
the Q-function of Eq. (10).
The Kerr medium in the second two-photon
interferometer after the amplifier will shift the phase of the signal
mode by , which is equivalent to applying a transformation
T given by
1 i
=
T
e U + + U ,
2
(19)
4
where U applies a phase shift of to the signal. The factor
1 | | /2
T e
e
g
2
g 2 1a */ g
g a a +
(20)
Letting the operator T act to the left on the state just shifts
its phase accordingly. Using a similar procedure on the other
factor f and dropping the two phase-shifted terms that are
rejected in the post-selection process gives the final Q-function:
Q+ ( , )
=
1
e | | exp g 2 1( e i * * + e i ) / g
4 2 g 2
2
| |2 | 0 |2 ( * 0 + 0 *)/ g
)e
(21)
with similar expressions for the three other terms.
The probability P of a post-selected event of this kind
is given by
P=
d Q ( , ).
(22)
e 2|0 | ( g 1)/(2 g
(2 g 2 1)
1)
O
=
| ( x ) + e ( x ) |
i
dx.
(24)
(25)
v
=
Q ( ) d 2 Q ( , ).
exp 4 | 0 |2 ,
(23)
Q out ( ) = Q in ( / g ) / g 2 .
(26)
Eq. (26) has a remarkably simple form and one might infer from
it that there is no significant change in the signal in the limit of
g 1 , since Q out ( ) Q in ( ) 0 in the limit discussed
above. Nevertheless, Eq. (26) is correct and it can be used to
derive the same visibility as that of Eq. (23) [30]. This shows
that very small changes in the Q-function can have surprisingly
large effects on the outcome of an experiment.
In summary, we have shown that entanglement and
which-path information can produce an exponentially-large
amount of decoherence in an ideal amplifier even when the gain
is arbitrarily close to unity and the added noise N is negligible.
These results are inconsistent with an interpretation in which a
linear amplifier has no effect other than to multiply the signal by
the gain and add independent noise. Although the linear
input/output relationship of Eq. (1) is valid, the operator x does
not describe the results of all possible measurements on the
output signal. For an optical parametric amplifier, this departure
from the linear nature of Eq. (1) is due to the nonlinear
susceptibility of its gain medium, while analogous effects also
occur for amplification by an inverted atomic medium [9].
We previously described a generalization of the
interferometer in Fig. 2 in which two coherent states become
entangled in phase and violate Bells inequality [29]. Systems
of that kind may be useful for quantum communications and
quantum computing. Thus the effects discussed here may be of
practical importance as well as providing additional insight into
the operation of linear amplifiers.
This work was supported in part by the National Science
Foundation under grant No. 1402708.
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