Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A Kuzmich.
A source of deterministic single photons is proposed and demonstrated by the application of a measurement-based feedback protocol to a heralded single-photon source consisting of an ensemble of cold rubidium atoms. Our source is stationary and produces a photoelectric detection record with sub-Poissonian statistics.
A quantum repeater at telecommunications wavelengths with long-lived atomic memory is proposed, and its critical elements are experimentally demonstrated using a cold atomic ensemble. Via atomic cascade emission, an entangled pair of 1.53 microm and 780 nm photons is generated. The former is ideal for long-distance quantum communication, and the latter is naturally suited for mapping to a long-lived atomic memory. Together with our previous demonstration of photonic-to-atomic qubit conversion, both of the essential elements for the proposed telecommunications quantum repeater have now been realized.
We report observations of entanglement of two remote atomic qubits, achieved by generating an entangled state of an atomic qubit and a single photon at site , transmitting the photon to site in an adjacent laboratory through an optical fiber, and converting the photon into an atomic qubit. Entanglement of the two remote atomic qubits is inferred by performing, locally, quantum state transfer of each of the atomic qubits onto a photonic qubit and subsequent measurement of polarization correlations in violation of the Bell inequality [EQUATION: SEE TEXT]. We experimentally determine [EQUATION: SEE TEXT]. Entanglement of two remote atomic qubits, each qubit consisting of two independent spin wave excitations, and reversible, coherent transfer of entanglement between matter and light represent important advances in quantum information science.
By time-dependent variation of a control field, both coherent and single-photon states of light are stored in, and retrieved from, a cold atomic gas. The efficiency of retrieval is studied as a function of the storage time in an applied magnetic field. A series of collapses and revivals is observed, in very good agreement with theoretical predictions. The observations are interpreted in terms of the time evolution of the collective excitation of atomic spin wave and light wave, known as the dark-state polariton.
An elementary quantum network operation involves storing a qubit state in an atomic quantum memory node, and then retrieving and transporting the information through a single photon excitation to a remote quantum memory node for further storage or analysis. Implementations of quantum network operations are thus conditioned on the ability to realize matter-to-light and/or light-to-matter quantum state mappings. Here we report the generation, transmission, storage and retrieval of single quanta using two remote atomic ensembles. A single photon is generated from a cold atomic ensemble at one site , and is directed to another site through 100 metres of optical fibre. The photon is then converted into a single collective atomic excitation using a dark-state polariton approach. After a programmable storage time, the atomic excitation is converted back into a single photon. This is demonstrated experimentally, for a storage time of 0.5 microseconds, by measurement of an anti-correlation parameter. Storage times exceeding ten microseconds are observed by intensity cross-correlation measurements. This storage period is two orders of magnitude longer than the time required to achieve conversion between photonic and atomic quanta. The controlled transfer of single quanta between remote quantum memories constitutes an important step towards distributed quantum networks.
We describe a new experimental approach to probabilistic atom-photon (signal) entanglement. Two qubit states are encoded as orthogonal collective spin excitations of an unpolarized atomic ensemble. After a programmable delay, the atomic excitation is converted into a photon (idler). Polarization states of both the signal and the idler are recorded and are found to be in violation of the Bell inequality. Atomic coherence times exceeding several microseconds are achieved by switching off all the trapping fields--including the quadrupole magnetic field of the magneto-optical trap--and zeroing out the residual ambient magnetic field.
We report on the coherent quantum state transfer from a two-level atomic system to a single photon. Entanglement between a single photon (signal) and a two-component ensemble of cold rubidium atoms is used to project the quantum memory element (the atomic ensemble) onto any desired state by measuring the signal in a suitable basis. The atomic qubit is read out by stimulating directional emission of a single photon (idler) from the (entangled) collective state of the ensemble. Faithful atomic memory preparation and readout are verified by the observed correlations between the signal and the idler photons. These results enable implementation of distributed quantum networking.
Single photons are generated from an ensemble of cold Cs atoms via the protocol of Duan et al. [Nature (London), ()]]. Conditioned upon an initial detection from field 1 at 852 nm, a photon in field 2 at 894 nm is produced in a controlled fashion from excitation stored within the atomic ensemble. The single-quantum character of field 2 is demonstrated by the violation of a Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, namely w(1(2),1(2)|1(1))=0.24+/-0.05 not > or = 1, where w(1(2),1(2)|1(1)) describes the detection of two events (1(2),1(2)) conditioned upon an initial detection 1(1), with w-->0 for single photons.
A single cesium atom trapped within the mode of an optical cavity is used to generate single photons on demand. The photon wave packets are emitted as a Gaussian beam with temporal profile and repetition rate controlled by external driving fields. Each generation attempt is inferred to succeed with a probability near unity, whereas the efficiency for creating an unpolarized photon in the total cavity output is 0.69 +/- 0.10, as limited by passive cavity losses. An average of 1.4 x 10(4) photons are produced by each trapped atom. These results constitute an important step in quantum information science, for example, toward the realization of distributed quantum networking.
The entanglement of multiatom quantum states is considered. In order to cancel noise due to inhomogeneous light-atom coupling, the concept of matched multiatom observables is proposed. As a means to eliminate an important form of decoherence this idea should be of broad relevance for quantum information processing with atomic ensembles. The general approach is illustrated on the example of rotation angle measurement, and it is shown that the multiatom states that were thought to be only weakly entangled can exhibit near-maximum entanglement.
Quantum information science attempts to exploit capabilities from the quantum realm to accomplish tasks that are otherwise impossible in the classical domain. Although sufficient conditions have been formulated for the physical resources required to achieve quantum computation and communication, there is a growing understanding of the power of quantum measurement combined with the conditional evolution of quantum states for accomplishing diverse tasks in quantum information science. For example, a protocol has recently been developed for the realization of scalable long-distance quantum communication and the distribution of entanglement over quantum networks. Here we report the first enabling step in the realization of this protocol, namely the observation of quantum correlations for photon pairs generated in the collective emission from an atomic ensemble. The nonclassical character of the fields is demonstrated by the violation of an inequality involving their normalized correlation functions. Compared to previous investigations of non-classical correlations for photon pairs produced in atomic cascades and in parametric down-conversion, our experiment is distinct in that the correlated photons are separated by a programmable time interval (of about 400 nanoseconds in our initial experiments).
Single cesium atoms are cooled and trapped inside a small optical cavity by way of a novel far-off-resonance dipole-force trap, with observed lifetimes of 2-3 s. Trapped atoms are observed continuously via transmission of a strongly coupled probe beam, with individual events lasting approximately 1 s. The loss of successive atoms from the trap N>/=3-->2-->1-->0 is thereby monitored in real time. Trapping, cooling, and interactions with strong coupling are enabled by the trap potential, for which the center-of-mass motion is only weakly dependent on the atom's internal state.
We consider pulse propagation in a linear anomalously dispersive medium where the group velocity exceeds the speed of light in vacuum ( c) or even becomes negative. A signal velocity is defined operationally based on the optical signal-to-noise ratio, and is computed for cases appropriate to the recent experiment where such a negative group velocity was observed. It is found that quantum fluctuations limit the signal velocity to values less than c.
A set of protocols for atoms-photons and atoms-atoms quantum state teleportation and swapping utilizing Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen light is proposed. The protocols work for polarization quantum states of multiphoton light pulses and macroscopic samples of atoms, i.e., for continuous quantum variables. A simple free space interaction of polarized light with a spin polarized atomic ensemble is shown to suffice for these protocols. Feasibility of experimental realization using gas samples of atoms is analyzed.
Continuous quantum nondemolition monitoring of a collective atomic spin with an off-resonant laser beam has been performed. Squeezed atomic spin states have thereby been produced with spin noise reduction to 70% below the standard quantum limit expected for a coherent spin state.
Using homodyning with weak coherent fields and photon counting, we have observed violations of Bell-type inequalities by the generalized Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen state produced in a pulsed nondegenerate optical parametric amplifier, as predicted by Grangier et al. [Phys. Rev. A 38, 3132 (1988)]. The maximum observed visibility of the interference pattern was (89+/-4)%. This interference can be regarded as a manifestation of nonlocality in the sense described by Banaszek and Wodkiewicz [Phys. Rev. A 58, 4345 (1998)]. We have investigated the interference both theoretically and experimentally and have measured the influence of dispersion and phase matching.
Einstein's theory of special relativity and the principle of causality imply that the speed of any moving object cannot exceed that of light in a vacuum (c). Nevertheless, there exist various proposals for observing faster-than-c propagation of light pulses, using anomalous dispersion near an absorption line, nonlinear and linear gain lines, or tunnelling barriers. However, in all previous experimental demonstrations, the light pulses experienced either very large absorption or severe reshaping, resulting in controversies over the interpretation. Here we use gain-assisted linear anomalous dispersion to demonstrate superluminal light propagation in atomic caesium gas. The group velocity of a laser pulse in this region exceeds c and can even become negative, while the shape of the pulse is preserved. We measure a group-velocity index of n(g) = -310(+/- 5); in practice, this means that a light pulse propagating through the atomic vapour cell appears at the exit side so much earlier than if it had propagated the same distance in a vacuum that the peak of the pulse appears to leave the cell before entering it. The observed superluminal light pulse propagation is not at odds with causality, being a direct consequence of classical interference between its different frequency components in an anomalous dispersion region.
The effects of the aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) inhibitors: cyanamide (CY) and disulfiram (DS) and the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) inhibitor, pyrazole (PY) and the combination of these drugs with ethanol (ET, 3.5 g/kg, ip 6 h before decapitation) on the concentrations of rat blood and liver ketone bodies were studied. We found a 2-fold increase in acetone 12 h after PY, 4-fold elevation 30 h after DS and a 14-fold rise 12 h after CY administration. While DS and PY had no pronounced effects on the blood acetoacetate and 3-hydroxybutyrate concentrations, CY increased both of them 5.5 and 3.4-fold, respectively. After combined PY+CY, DS+ET and CY+ET injection, the effect became potentiated and the blood acetone levels rose more than 20-fold. The ET injection increased the concentrations of liver ketone bodies. The DS pretreatment did not change the acetoacetate and 3-hydroxybutyrate concentrations found after ET, but CY increased that of acetoacetate. Thus, the DS- and PY-induced acetonemia may be related to decreased acetone catabolism, whereas the CY effect--to increased formation of acetone from its metabolic precursor, acetoacetate. The ALDH inhibitors potentiated the ethanol-induced acetonemia probably by a combination of disturbances in ketone bodies production and acetone metabolism.