Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology

The field of cavity optomechanics is reviewed. This field explores the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and nanomechanical or micromechanical motion. This review covers the basics of optical cavities and mechanical resonators, their mutual optomechanical interaction mediated by the radiation-pressure force, the large variety of experimental systems which exhibit this interaction, optical measurements of mechanical motion, dynamical backaction amplification and cooling, nonlinear dynamics, multimode optomechanics, and proposals for future cavity-quantum-optomechanics experiments. In addition, the perspectives for fundamental quantum physics and for possible applications of optomechanical devices are described.

Local realism is the worldview in which physical properties of objects exist independently of measurement and where physical influences cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Bell's theorem states that this worldview is incompatible with the predictions of quantum mechanics, as is expressed in Bell's inequalities. Previous experiments convincingly supported the quantum predictions. Yet, every experiment requires assumptions that provide loopholes for a local realist explanation. Here, we report a Bell test that closes the most significant of these loopholes simultaneously. Using a well-optimized source of entangled photons, rapid setting generation, and highly efficient superconducting detectors, we observe a violation of a Bell inequality with high statistical significance. The purely statistical probability of our results to occur under local realism does not exceed 3.74×10^{-31}, corresponding to an 11.5 standard deviation effect.

Multiphoton interference reveals strictly nonclassical phenomena. Its applications range from fundamental tests of quantum mechanics to photonic quantum information processing, where a significant fraction of key experiments achieved so far comes from multiphoton state manipulation. The progress, both theoretical and experimental, of this rapidly advancing research is reviewed. The emphasis is given to the creation of photonic entanglement of various forms, tests of the completeness of quantum mechanics (in particular, violations of local realism), quantum information protocols for quantum communication (e.g., quantum teleportation, entanglement purification, and quantum repeater), and quantum computation with linear optics. The scope of the review is limited to ``few-photon'' phenomena involving measurements of discrete observables.

Prethermalization When a physical system is subjected to a rapid change of conditions (for example, a gas of atoms is allowed to occupy a volume twice the size of the original container), it quickly achieves a new temperature (thermalizes) through collisions. However, in some quantum systems many conserved variables inhibit thermalization; understanding the phases the systems go through in the slowing process is of great interest to cosmologists and physicists. Gring et al. (p. 1318 , published online 31 August) separate an ultracold one-dimensional gas of bosonic atoms into two nearly identical halves, and follow how local differences in phase between the halves evolve in time by examining their interference. Initially, the local phases are almost identical, but a rapid decoherence ensues, followed by a very slow further decay. The authors analyze the relative state reached after the initial fast decay and find that it can be described by an equilibrium function with an effective temperature several times less than the initial temperature. Because this cannot be the final state of the system, the authors term the initial process prethermalization.

Single photons with helical phase structures may carry a quantized amount of orbital angular momentum (OAM), and their entanglement is important for quantum information science and fundamental tests of quantum theory. Because there is no theoretical upper limit on how many quanta of OAM a single photon can carry, it is possible to create entanglement between two particles with an arbitrarily high difference in quantum number. By transferring polarization entanglement to OAM with an interferometric scheme, we generate and verify entanglement between two photons differing by 600 in quantum number. The only restrictive factors toward higher numbers are current technical limitations. We also experimentally demonstrate that the entanglement of very high OAM can improve the sensitivity of angular resolution in remote sensing.

An extensively pursued current direction of research in physics aims at the development of practical technologies that exploit the effects of quantum mechanics. As part of this ongoing effort, devices for quantum information processing, secure communication, and high-precision sensing are being implemented with diverse systems, ranging from photons, atoms, and spins to mesoscopic superconducting and nanomechanical structures. Their physical properties make some of these systems better suited than others for specific tasks; thus, photons are well suited for transmitting quantum information, weakly interacting spins can serve as long-lived quantum memories, and superconducting elements can rapidly process information encoded in their quantum states. A central goal of the envisaged quantum technologies is to develop devices that can simultaneously perform several of these tasks, namely, reliably store, process, and transmit quantum information. Hybrid quantum systems composed of different physical components with complementary functionalities may provide precisely such multitasking capabilities. This article reviews some of the driving theoretical ideas and first experimental realizations of hybrid quantum systems and the opportunities and challenges they present and offers a glance at the near- and long-term perspectives of this fascinating and rapidly expanding field.

Controlling the flow of light with nanophotonic waveguides has the potential of transforming integrated information processing. Because of the strong transverse confinement of the guided photons, their internal spin and their orbital angular momentum get coupled. Using this spin-orbit interaction of light, we break the mirror symmetry of the scattering of light with a gold nanoparticle on the surface of a nanophotonic waveguide and realize a chiral waveguide coupler in which the handedness of the incident light determines the propagation direction in the waveguide. We control the directionality of the scattering process and can direct up to 94% of the incoupled light into a given direction. Our approach allows for the control and manipulation of light in optical waveguides and new designs of optical sensors.

We perform decoy-state quantum key distribution between a low-Earth-orbit satellite and multiple ground stations located in Xinglong, Nanshan, and Graz, which establish satellite-to-ground secure keys with ∼kHz rate per passage of the satellite Micius over a ground station. The satellite thus establishes a secure key between itself and, say, Xinglong, and another key between itself and, say, Graz. Then, upon request from the ground command, Micius acts as a trusted relay. It performs bitwise exclusive or operations between the two keys and relays the result to one of the ground stations. That way, a secret key is created between China and Europe at locations separated by 7600 km on Earth. These keys are then used for intercontinental quantum-secured communication. This was, on the one hand, the transmission of images in a one-time pad configuration from China to Austria as well as from Austria to China. Also, a video conference was performed between the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which also included a 280 km optical ground connection between Xinglong and Beijing. Our work clearly confirms the Micius satellite as a robust platform for quantum key distribution with different ground stations on Earth, and points towards an efficient solution for an ultralong-distance global quantum network.

A nanoparticle trapped and cooled Cooling massive particles to the quantum ground state allows fundamental tests of quantum mechanics to be made; it would provide an experimental probe of the boundary between the classical and quantum worlds. Delić et al. laser-cooled an optically trapped solid-state object (a ∼150-nanometer-diameter silic a nanoparticle) into its quantum ground state of motion starting from room temperature. Because the object is levitated using optical forces, the experimental configuration can be switched to free fall, thereby providing a test bed for several macroscopic quantum experiments. Science , this issue p. 892

The description of the non-equilibrium dynamics of isolated quantum many-body systems within the framework of statistical mechanics is a fundamental open question. Conventional thermodynamical ensembles fail to describe the large class of systems that exhibit nontrivial conserved quantities, and generalized ensembles have been predicted to maximize entropy in these systems. We show experimentally that a degenerate one-dimensional Bose gas relaxes to a state that can be described by such a generalized ensemble. This is verified through a detailed study of correlation functions up to 10th order. The applicability of the generalized ensemble description for isolated quantum many-body systems points to a natural emergence of classical statistical properties from the microscopic unitary quantum evolution.

Twisted photons can be used as alphabets to encode information beyond one bit per single photon. This ability offers great potential for quantum information tasks, as well as for the investigation of fundamental questions. In this review article, we give a brief overview of the theoretical differences between qubits and higher dimensional systems, qudits, in different quantum information scenarios. We then describe recent experimental developments in this field over the past three years. Finally, we summarize some important experimental and theoretical questions that might be beneficial to understand better in the near future.

Transverse spatial modes of light offer a large state-space with interesting physical properties. For exploiting these special modes in future long-distance experiments, the modes will have to be transmitted over turbulent free-space links. Numerous recent lab-scale experiments have found significant degradation in the mode quality after transmission through simulated turbulence and consecutive coherent detection. Here, we experimentally analyze the transmission of one prominent class of spatial modes-orbital-angular momentum (OAM) modes-through 3 km of strong turbulence over the city of Vienna. Instead of performing a coherent phase-dependent measurement, we employ an incoherent detection scheme, which relies on the unambiguous intensity patterns of the different spatial modes. We use a pattern recognition algorithm (an artificial neural network) to identify the characteristic mode patterns displayed on a screen at the receiver. We were able to distinguish between 16 different OAM mode superpositions with only a 1.7% error rate and to use them to encode and transmit small grayscale images. Moreover, we found that the relative phase of the superposition modes is not affected by the atmosphere, establishing the feasibility for performing long-distance quantum experiments with the OAM of photons. Our detection method works for other classes of spatial modes with

We propose a method to prepare and verify spatial quantum superpositions of a nanometer-sized object separated by distances of the order of its size. This method provides unprecedented bounds for objective collapse models of the wave function by merging techniques and insights from cavity quantum optomechanics and matter-wave interferometry. An analysis and simulation of the experiment is performed taking into account standard sources of decoherence. We provide an operational parameter regime using present-day and planned technology.

Abstract Lattice gauge theories, which originated from particle physics in the context of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), provide an important intellectual stimulus to further develop quantum information technologies. While one long-term goal is the reliable quantum simulation of currently intractable aspects of QCD itself, lattice gauge theories also play an important role in condensed matter physics and in quantum information science. In this way, lattice gauge theories provide both motivation and a framework for interdisciplinary research towards the development of special purpose digital and analog quantum simulators, and ultimately of scalable universal quantum computers. In this manuscript, recent results and new tools from a quantum science approach to study lattice gauge theories are reviewed. Two new complementary approaches are discussed: first, tensor network methods are presented – a classical simulation approach – applied to the study of lattice gauge theories together with some results on Abelian and non-Abelian lattice gauge theories. Then, recent proposals for the implementation of lattice gauge theory quantum simulators in different quantum hardware are reported, e.g., trapped ions, Rydberg atoms, and superconducting circuits. Finally, the first proof-of-principle trapped ions experimental quantum simulations of the Schwinger model are reviewed. Graphical abstract

Quantum computers, besides offering substantial computational speedups, are also expected to preserve the privacy of a computation. We present an experimental demonstration of blind quantum computing in which the input, computation, and output all remain unknown to the computer. We exploit the conceptual framework of measurement-based quantum computation that enables a client to delegate a computation to a quantum server. Various blind delegated computations, including one- and two-qubit gates and the Deutsch and Grover quantum algorithms, are demonstrated. The client only needs to be able to prepare and transmit individual photonic qubits. Our demonstration is crucial for unconditionally secure quantum cloud computing and might become a key ingredient for real-life applications, especially when considering the challenges of making powerful quantum computers widely available.

We demonstrate a wavelength-tunable, fiber-coupled source of polarization- entangled photons with extremely high spectral brightness and quality of entanglement. Using a 25 mm PPKTP crystal inside a polarization Sagnac interferometer we detect a spectral brightness of 273000 pairs (s mW nm)(-1), a factor of 28 better than comparable previous sources while state tomography showed the two-photon state to have a tangle of T = 0.987. This improvement was achieved by use of a long crystal, careful selection of focusing parameters and single-mode fiber coupling. We demonstrate that, due to the particular geometry of the setup, the signal and idler wavelengths can be tuned over a wide range without loss of entanglement.

The spin of light in subwavelength-diameter waveguides can be orthogonal to the propagation direction of the photons because of the strong transverse confinement. This transverse spin changes sign when the direction of propagation is reversed. Using this effect, we demonstrate the directional spontaneous emission of photons by laser-trapped caesium atoms into an optical nanofibre and control their propagation direction by the excited state of the atomic emitters. In particular, we tune the spontaneous emission into the counter-propagating guided modes from symmetric to strongly asymmetric, where more than % of the optical power is launched into one or the other direction. We expect our results to have important implications for research in quantum nanophotonics and for implementations of integrated optical signal processing in the quantum regime.

Quantum teleportation allows a "disembodied" transmission of unknown quantum states between distant quantum systems. Yet, all teleportation experiments to date were limited to a two-dimensional subspace of quantized multiple levels of the quantum systems. Here, we propose a scheme for teleportation of arbitrarily high-dimensional photonic quantum states and demonstrate an example of teleporting a qutrit. Measurements over a complete set of 12 qutrit states in mutually unbiased bases yield a teleportation fidelity of 0.75(1), which is well above both the optimal single-copy qutrit state-estimation limit of 1/2 and maximal qubit-qutrit overlap of 2/3, thus confirming a genuine and nonclassical three-dimensional teleportation. Our work will enable advanced quantum technologies in high dimensions, since teleportation plays a central role in quantum repeaters and quantum networks.

Spatial modes of light can potentially carry a vast amount of information, making them promising candidates for both classical and quantum communication. However, the distribution of such modes over large distances remains difficult. Intermodal coupling complicates their use with common fibers, whereas free-space transmission is thought to be strongly influenced by atmospheric turbulence. Here, we show the transmission of orbital angular momentum modes of light over a distance of 143 km between two Canary Islands, which is 50× greater than the maximum distance achieved previously. As a demonstration of the transmission quality, we use superpositions of these modes to encode a short message. At the receiver, an artificial neural network is used for distinguishing between the different twisted light superpositions. The algorithm is able to identify different mode superpositions with an accuracy of more than 80% up to the third mode order and decode the transmitted message with an error rate of 8.33%. Using our data, we estimate that the distribution of orbital angular momentum entanglement over more than 100 km of free space is feasible. Moreover, the quality of our free-space link can be further improved by the use of state-of-the-art adaptive optics systems.

The wave nature of matter is a key ingredient of quantum physics and yet it defies our classical intuition. First proposed by Louis de Broglie a century ago, it has since been confirmed with a variety of particles from electrons up to molecules. Here we demonstrate new high-contrast quantum experiments with large and massive tailor-made organic molecules in a near-field interferometer. Our experiments prove the quantum wave nature and delocalization of compounds composed of up to 430 atoms, with a maximal size of up to 60 Å, masses up to m=6,910 AMU and de Broglie wavelengths down to λdB=h/mv≃1 pm. We show that even complex systems, with more than 1,000 internal degrees of freedom, can be prepared in quantum states that are sufficiently well isolated from their environment to avoid decoherence and to show almost perfect coherence. Observing superposition states of mesoscopic quantum systems is an ongoing challenge. Gerlichet al. report quantum interference of large tailor-made organic compounds, demonstrating delocalization and the quantum wave nature of entire molecules composed of up to 430 atoms.