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Entanglement between more than two hundred macroscopic atomic ensembles in a solid.
P Zarkeshian1, C Deshmukh1, N Sinclair1
1Institute for Quantum Science and Technology, and Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB, Canada, T2N 1N4.
Nature Communications
|October 15, 2017
Summary
Researchers created a macroscopic Dicke state, a form of multipartite entanglement, using a single photon stored in a crystal with numerous atomic ensembles. This demonstrates entanglement across over 200 ensembles, each with a billion atoms.
Area of Science:
- Quantum Physics
- Condensed Matter Physics
Background:
- Multipartite entanglement is crucial for quantum information processing but is challenging to create and verify in macroscopic systems.
- Dicke states represent a specific type of multipartite entanglement where a single excitation is distributed across multiple quantum systems.
Purpose of the Study:
- To experimentally generate and demonstrate multipartite entanglement in a macroscopic solid-state system.
- To investigate the creation of Dicke states using a single photon interacting with atomic ensembles.
Main Methods:
- Storing a single photon within a crystal containing multiple atomic ensembles with distinct resonance frequencies.
- Utilizing an interference effect, analogous to multi-slit diffraction, for controlled photon re-emission.
- Deriving a lower bound for the number of entangled ensembles based on interference contrast and single-photon purity.
Main Results:
- Successfully created a Dicke state distributed over a macroscopic ensemble.
- Experimentally demonstrated entanglement involving over 200 atomic ensembles, with each ensemble containing approximately one billion atoms.
- Showcased that individual atomic ensembles also exhibit internal entanglement.
Conclusions:
- The study provides a novel method for generating and verifying macroscopic multipartite entanglement.
- The demonstrated technique opens avenues for scalable quantum memory and quantum information processing applications.
- The findings highlight the potential for robust entanglement in large, solid-state quantum systems.