Quantum teleportation between discrete and continuous encodings of an optical qubit

Journal article

The transfer of quantum information between physical systems of a different nature is a central matter in quantum technologies. Particularly challenging is the transfer between discrete and continuous degrees of freedom of various harmonic oscillator systems. Here we implement a protocol for teleporting a continuous-variable optical qubit, encoded by means of low-amplitude coherent states, onto a discrete-variable, single-rail qubit—a superposition of the vacuum and single-photon optical states—via a hybrid entangled resource. We test our protocol on a one-dimensional manifold of the input qubit space and demonstrate the mapping onto the equator of the teleported qubit’s Bloch sphere with an average fidelity of 0.83±0.04. Our work opens up the way to the wide application of quantum information processing techniques where discrete- and continuous-variable encodings are combined within the same optical circuit.

Authors: Ulanov, AE; Sychev, D; Pushkina, AA; Fedorov, IA; Lvovsky, AI

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Journal: Physical Review Letters
• Volume: 118
• Issue: 16
• Article number: 160501
• Place of publication: United States
• Publication date: 2017-04-17
• DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.118.160501
• EISSN: 1079-7114
• ISSN: 0031-9007
• Pmid: 28474950
• Language: English
• Keywords: FFR