Sufficient condition for a quantum state to be genuinely quantum non-Gaussian Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • 2018 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd on behalf of Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. We showthat the expectation value of the operator O exp(-cx2) + exp(-cp2) defined by the position and momentum operators x and p with a positive parameter c can serve as a tool to identify quantum non-Gaussian states, that is states that cannot be represented as a mixture of Gaussian states. Our condition can be readily tested employing a highly efficient homodyne detection which unlike quantum-state tomography requires the measurements of only two orthogonal quadratures.We demonstrate that our method is even able to detect quantum non-Gaussian states with positive- definite Wigner functions. This situation cannot be addressed in terms of the negativity of the phasespace distribution. Moreover, we demonstrate that our condition can characterize quantum non- Gaussianity for the class of superposition states consisting of a vacuum and integer multiples of four photons under more than 50%signal attenuation.

published proceedings

  • NEW JOURNAL OF PHYSICS

altmetric score

  • 0.25

author list (cited authors)

  • Happ, L., Efremov, M. A., Nha, H., & Schleich, W. P.

citation count

  • 27

complete list of authors

  • Happ, L||Efremov, MA||Nha, H||Schleich, WP

publication date

  • February 2018