# Optical Bell Measurement by Fock Filtering

## 1 Introduction

Entanglement and entangled states are fundamental concepts of the new field of quantum information . They can be exploited for example in super-dense coding  or teleportation  both of which have been demonstrated experimentally. The most important example of entangled states is perhaps given by the four polarization-entangled Bell states involving two photons

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_\pm `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[|1001\pm |0110\right]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[a_{}b_{}\pm a_{}b_{}\right]^{}|\mathrm{𝟎}`$ (1)   
$`|\mathrm{\Phi }_\pm `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[|1010\pm |0101\right]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[a_{}b_{}\pm a_{}b_{}\right]^{}|\mathrm{𝟎},`$ (2)   
where $`a_{}(b_{})`$ denotes horizontal polarized and $`a_{}(b_{})`$ denotes vertical polarized photons in the two possible directions of propagation denoted by $`a`$ and $`b`$ (see also Fig. 1). Indeed, these states have been produced experimentally via the nonlinear process of spontaneous down-conversion . In order to actually exploit entanglement, in the manipulation of quantum information one has to be able to distinguish the different maximally entangled states given above. This ability is crucial for the unambiguous experimental realization for example of quantum teleportation , where an unknown quantum state can be exchanged between two parties as long as they share an entangled state, and perform the appropriate measurement to discriminate it among the others.

A simple interferometric setup cannot be of help for the discrimination among the four EPR states, as it has been shown recently  that a complete Bell measurement cannot be performed using only linear elements. A method to overcome this conclusion has been suggested in Ref. , which, however, requires to embed the state of interest in a larger Hilbert space, and therefore can be applied only in presence of multiple entanglement (entanglement in more than two degrees of freedom).

## 2 Bell discrimination

In this paper we consider the nonlinear interferometric setup depicted in Fig. 1. Our starting point is a reliable source of optical EPR-Bell states, i. e., polarization entangled photon pairs. This is usually a birefringent crystal where type-II parametric down-conversion transforms an incoming pump photon into a pair of correlated ordinary and extraordinary photons. We assume that each pulse (the signal) is prepared in one of the four EPR-Bell states, and we want to unambiguously infer from measurements which one was actually impinging onto the apparatus.

The signal first enters a polarizing beam splitter, which transmits photons with a given polarization (say vertical) and reflects photons with the orthogonal one (say horizontal). The mode transformations of this element is given by (the notation for the field modes refers to Fig. 1 hereafter)

$`(c_{},c_{},d_{},d_{})=\widehat{U}_{\mathrm{PBS}}(a_{},a_{},b_{},b_{})\widehat{U}_{\mathrm{PBS}}^{}=(b_{},a_{},a_{},b_{}),`$ (3)   
and the corresponding Schrödinger evolution of the Bell states is

$`\widehat{U}_{\mathrm{PBS}}(\mathrm{\Phi }_+,\mathrm{\Phi }_{},\mathrm{\Psi }_+,\mathrm{\Psi }_{})=(\mathrm{\Phi }_+,\mathrm{\Phi }_{},\chi _+,\chi _{}).`$ (4)   
In Eq. (4) $`\chi _\pm `$ are superpositions of states with both photons in the same path (arm) 

$`|\chi _\pm `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[|1100\pm |0011\right]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[b_{}b_{}\pm a_{}a_{}\right]^{}|\mathrm{𝟎}.`$ (5)   
The two sets of states, $`\chi _\pm `$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\pm `$, can now be discriminated by the number of photons travelling in one arm of the interferometer, which is either zero or two for $`\chi _\pm `$ and (certainly only) one for $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\pm `$. Such a discrimination can be performed by means of a Fock Filter (FF), which is a novel kind of all-optical nonlinear switch . Let us postpone the detailed description of the FF to section 3. For the moment we assume that it switches on when a single photon (of any polarization) is present, and does not switch for zero or more than one photons. As we will see, the FF performs a kind of non-demolition measurement of the photon number, such that coherence is preserved and the state after the measurement is still available for further manipulations. Indeed, the remaining part of the device should be able to distinguish phases, namely to discriminate between $`\chi _+`$ and $`\chi _{}`$, or between $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}`$. For this purpose, first the polarization of photons in the second arm is rotated by $`\pi /2`$ using a half-wave plate, thus turning $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\pm `$ into $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\pm `$ respectively, while leaving $`\chi _\pm `$ untouched. In fact, the transformation induced by the polarization rotator reads $`\widehat{U}_{PR}=\widehat{\mathrm{I}}\widehat{V}_{PR}`$, where $`\widehat{V}_{PR}`$ acts only on two modes

$`(d_{}^{},d_{}^{})=\widehat{V}_{\mathrm{PR}}(d_{},d_{})\widehat{V}_{\mathrm{PR}}^{}=(d_{},d_{}),`$ (6)   
and thus

$`\widehat{U}_{\mathrm{PR}}(\chi _+,\chi _{},\mathrm{\Phi }_+,\mathrm{\Phi }_{})=(\chi _+,\chi _{},\mathrm{\Psi }_+,\mathrm{\Psi }_{}).`$ (7)   
The two paths are then recombined into a balanced (not polarizing) beam splitter, whose action on generic field modes $`x`$ and $`y`$ is described by

$`\widehat{U}_{\mathrm{BS}}(x_{},x_{},y_{},y_{})\widehat{U}_{\mathrm{BS}}^{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(x_{}+y_{},x_{}+y_{},x_{}y_{},x_{}y_{}).`$ (8)   
If the transformation (8) is applied to the field modes $`c`$ and $`d^{}`$ we have, using Eqs. (6) and (3),

$`(e_{},e_{},f_{},f_{})`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{U}_{\mathrm{BS}}(c_{},c_{},d_{}^{},d_{}^{})\widehat{U}_{\mathrm{BS}}^{}`$ (9)   
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(c_{}+d_{}^{},c_{}+d_{}^{},c_{}d_{}^{},c_{}d_{}^{})`$   
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(b_{}+b_{},a_{}a_{},b_{}b_{},a_{}+a_{}).`$   
In terms of the state just before the BS this corresponds to the following Schrödinger evolution

$`\widehat{U}_{\mathrm{BS}}(\chi _+,\chi _{},\mathrm{\Psi }_+,\mathrm{\Psi }_{})=(\chi _+,\mathrm{\Psi }_+,\chi _{},\mathrm{\Psi }_{}).`$ (10)   
Finally, the photons are measured by single-photons avalanche photo-detectors, where the last stage of the setup is a coincidence circuit (CC). In fact, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\pm `$ correspond to the presence of photons in both channel, whereas $`\chi _\pm `$ are superpositions with both photons in the same path. In terms of the states before the BS, this means that superpositions with the minus sign ($`\chi _{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{}`$) lead to coincident clicks at photo-detectors (CC ON), whereas superpositions with the plus sign ($`\chi _+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_+`$) do not switch on the coincidence circuit.

The whole chain of transformations of our setup can be summarized by the following diagram

| $`\mathrm{\Psi }_+`$ | $`\stackrel{\mathrm{PBS}}{}`$ | $`\chi _+`$ | \[FF OFF\] | $`\stackrel{PR}{}`$ | $`\chi _+`$ | $`\stackrel{BS}{}`$ | $`\chi _+`$ | \[CC OFF\] |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{}`$ | $`\stackrel{\mathrm{PBS}}{}`$ | $`\chi _{}`$ | \[FF OFF\] | $`\stackrel{PR}{}`$ | $`\chi _{}`$ | $`\stackrel{BS}{}`$ | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_+`$ | \[CC ON\] |
| $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+`$ | $`\stackrel{\mathrm{PBS}}{}`$ | $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+`$ | \[FF ON\] | $`\stackrel{PR}{}`$ | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_+`$ | $`\stackrel{BS}{}`$ | $`\chi _{}`$ | \[CC OFF\] |
| $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}`$ | $`\stackrel{\mathrm{PBS}}{}`$ | $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}`$ | \[FF ON\] | $`\stackrel{PR}{}`$ | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{}`$ | $`\stackrel{BS}{}`$ | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{}`$ | \[CC ON\] |

which illustrates the unambiguous discrimination of the four Bell states.

Our scheme is minimal, as it involves only two measurements, and thus only four possible outcomes, which equals the number of states to be discriminated.

## 3 Fock Filtering

The Fock Filter is schematically depicted in Fig. 2. The signal under examination is coupled to a high-Q ring cavity by a nonlinear crystal with relevant third-order susceptibility $`\chi \chi ^{(3)}`$, which imposes cross-Kerr phase modulation. We assume that the coupling is independent of polarization, such that the evolution operator of the Kerr medium is given by

$`U_K=\mathrm{exp}\left\{ig(a_{}^{}a_{}+a_{}^{}a_{})c^{}c\right\},`$ (11)   
where $`g=\chi t`$ is the coupling constant, the $`a`$’s are the two polarization modes of the signal, and $`c`$ describes the cavity mode. Eq. (11) states that, as a result of the Kerr interaction, the cavity mode is subjected to a phase-shift proportional to the number of photons passing through the arm of the interferometer. The FF is complemented by a further, tunable, phase-shift $`\psi `$, and operates with the ring cavity fed by a strong coherent state $`|z`$, i.e. a weak laser beam provided by a stable source (the second port of the cavity is left unexcited). The input state of the whole device can be written as $`|\phi _{\mathrm{in}}=|z|0|\nu `$, where $`|\nu =_{n_{}n_{}}\nu _{n_{}n_{}}|n_{}|n_{}`$ denotes a generic preparation of the signal mode. The output state is given by

$`|\phi _{\mathrm{out}}={\displaystyle \underset{n_{}n_{}}{}}\nu _{n_{}n_{}}|\sigma _{n_{}+n_{}}z|\kappa _{n_{}+n_{}}z|n_{}|n_{},`$ (12)   
where 

$`\sigma _n={\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{1[1\tau ]e^{i\varphi _n}}}\kappa _n={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt[]{1\tau }(e^{i\varphi _n}1)}{1[1\tau ]e^{i\varphi _n}}},`$ (13)   
are the overall photon-number-dependent transmitivity and reflectivity of the cavity. In Eq. (13) $`\varphi _n=\psi gn`$, whereas $`\tau `$ denotes the transmitivity of the cavity beam splitters $`BS_1`$ and $`BS_2`$. For a good cavity, (i.e. a cavity with large quality factor) $`\tau `$ should be quite small, usual values achievable in quantum optical labs are about $`\tau 10^410^6`$ (losses, due to absorption processes, are about $`10^7`$). At the cavity output one mode is ignored, whereas the other one is monitored by an avalanche single-photon photo-detector, which checks whether or not photons are present. This kind of ON/OFF measurement is described by a two valued POM

$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{\mathrm{𝖮𝖥𝖥}}={\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}(1\eta )^k|kk|\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{\mathrm{𝖮𝖭}}=\widehat{1}\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{\mathrm{𝖮𝖥𝖥}},`$ (14)   
$`\eta `$ being the quantum efficiency of the photo-detector. If the state travelling through the interferometer is either $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+`$ or $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}`$ we have $`|\phi _{\mathrm{in}}=|z|0|\mathrm{\Phi }_\pm `$ and thus

$`|\phi _{\mathrm{out}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[|\sigma _1z|\kappa _1z|1010\pm |\sigma _1z|\kappa _1z|0101\right]=|\sigma _1z|\kappa _1z|\mathrm{\Phi }_\pm .`$ (15)   
The probability of having a click is given by 

$`P(\mathrm{𝖮𝖭}|\mathrm{\Phi }_\pm )=\text{Tr}\left\{|\phi _{\mathrm{out}}\phi _{\mathrm{out}}|\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{\mathrm{𝖮𝖭}}\right\}=1\mathrm{exp}\left(\eta |\sigma _1|^2|z|^2\right),`$ (16)   
whereas the conditional output signal state, after a click has been actually registered, turns out to be 

$`\widehat{\nu }_{\mathrm{out}}(\mathrm{𝖮𝖭}|\mathrm{\Phi }_\pm )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{P(\mathrm{𝖮𝖭}|\mathrm{\Phi }_\pm )}}\text{Tr}_{cavity}\left\{|\phi _{\mathrm{out}}\phi _{\mathrm{out}}|\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{\mathrm{𝖮𝖭}}\right\}=|\mathrm{\Phi }_\pm \mathrm{\Phi }_\pm |.`$ (17)   
By setting $`\psi =g`$ and for $`\eta |z|^21`$ we have $`P(\mathrm{𝖮𝖭}|\mathrm{\Phi }_\pm )1`$. On the other hand, if the signal is either $`\chi _+`$ or $`\chi _{}`$ we have $`|\phi _{\mathrm{in}}=|z|0|\chi _\pm `$ and

$`|\phi _{\mathrm{out}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[|\sigma _2z|\kappa _2z|1100\pm |\sigma _0z|\kappa _0z|0011\right]`$ (18)   
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[|\sigma z|\kappa z|1100\pm |\sigma ^{}z|\kappa ^{}z|0011\right],`$   
where the second equality comes from the fact that by setting $`\psi =g`$ we have $`\sigma _0^{}=\sigma _2\sigma `$. Finally, from Eqs. (14) and (18) we have

$`P(\mathrm{𝖮𝖥𝖥}|\chi _\pm )`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left(\eta |\sigma |^2|z|^2\right)`$ (19)   
$`\widehat{\nu }_{\mathrm{out}}(\mathrm{𝖮𝖥𝖥}|\chi _\pm )`$ $`=`$ $`|\chi _\pm \chi _\pm |.`$ (20)   
For small $`g`$ and $`\tau `$ we have $`|\sigma |^2(\tau /g)^2`$. Therefore, for $`\tau g`$ we have $`P(\mathrm{𝖮𝖥𝖥}|\chi _\pm )1`$. This means that a click at the Fock Filter unambiguously implies that either $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+`$ or $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}`$ was travelling through the interferometer, where having no click indicates the passage of either $`\chi _+`$ or $`\chi _{}`$. Remarkably, the measurement is quite robust against detector inefficiency (as only the product $`\eta |z|^2`$ is relevant) and does not destroy coherence. For both the possible outcomes (either ON or OFF) the state after the measurement remains unaffected, and is still available for further manipulations.

## 4 Conclusions

In conclusion, we have described an interferometric setup to perform a complete optical Bell measurement. It consists of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with the first beam splitter a polarizing one, and the second a normal one, and where inside the interferometer a non-demolition photon number measurement is performed by the Fock filtering technique. The resulting scheme is robust against detectors inefficiency, and provides a reliable method to unambiguously discriminate among the four polarization-entangled EPR-Bell photon pairs.

We would like to thank D. Bouwmeester for useful comments. This work was supported by CNR and NATO through the Advanced Fellowship program 1998, the EPSRC, The Leverhulme Trust, the INFM, the Brazilian agency Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPQ), the ORS Awards Scheme, the Inlaks Foundation and the European Union.