Entanglement characterization by single-photon counting with random noise

In this article, we investigate the problem of entanglement characterization by polarization measurements combined with maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). A realistic scenario is considered with measurement results distorted by random experimental errors. In particular, by imposing unitary rotations acting on the measurement operators, we can test the performance of the tomographic technique versus the amount of noise. Then, dark counts are introduced to explore the efficiency of the framework in a multi-dimensional noise scenario. The concurrence is used as a figure of merit to quantify how well entanglement is preserved through noisy measurements. Quantum fidelity is computed to quantify the accuracy of state reconstruction. The results of numerical simulations are depicted on graphs and discussed.

An Enhanced Photonic Quantum Finite Automaton

In a recent paper we have described an optical implementation of a measure-once one-way quantum finite automaton recognizing a well-known family of unary periodic languages, accepting words not in the language with a given error probability. To process input words, the automaton exploits the degree of polarization of single photons and, to reduce the acceptance error probability, a technique of confidence amplification using the photon counts is implemented. In this paper, we show that the performance of this automaton may be further improved by using strategies that suitably consider both the orthogonal output polarizations of the photon. In our analysis, we also take into account how detector dark counts may affect the performance of the automaton.

Regularization methods for ill-posed problems of general physics

On the example of a specific physical problem of noise reduction associated with losses, dark counts, and background radiation, a summary of methods for regularizing ill-posed problems is given in the statistics of photocounts of quantum light. The mathematical formulation of the problem is presented by an operator equation of the first kind. The operator is generated by a matrix with countable elements. In the sense of Hadamard, the problem of reconstructing the number of photons of quantum light is due to the compactness of the operator of the mathematical model. A rigorous definition of a regularizing operator (regularizer) is given. The problem of stable approximation to the exact solution of the operator equation with inaccurately given initial data can be overcome by one of the most well-known regularization methods, the theoretical foundations of which were laid in the works of A.N. Tikhonov. The selection of an important class of regularizing algorithms is based on the construction of a parametric family of functions that are Borel measurable on the semiaxis and satisfy some additional conditions. The set of regularizers in this family includes most of the known regularization methods. The main ones are given in the work.

DEVELOPMENT OF OPTICALLY STIMULATED LUMINESCENCE BADGE READER SYSTEM FOR INDIVIDUAL MONITORING OF RADIATION WORKERS

A new Optically Stimulated Luminescence Badge Reader (OSBARE-1) system has been designed and developed for application in the individual monitoring dosimetry. This badge reader system utilizes the 470-nm light of a blue LED for CW-OSL readout with the help of PMT photon counting module. The developed reader system can process four element 24 OSLD cards within 25 min. These four-element OSLD card consists of the Teflon embedded indigenously developed dosimetric grade α-Al2O3:C phosphor. The minimum measurable dose (MMD) was found to be ~26 μGy for these OSLD cards with reproducibility of ~1.12%. The various operational parameters such as variation in the dark counts, OSL scattering background counts and reproducibility have been studied in detailed for this reader system. The dosimetric studies performed on this developed reader system found to have a great potential for the OSLD-based large-scale personnel monitoring program for the radiation workers.

Quantum Bounds on Detector Efficiencies for Violating Bell Inequalities Using Semidefinite Programming

Loophole-free violations of Bell inequalities are crucial for fundamental tests of quantum nonlocality. They are also important for future applications in quantum information processing, such as device-independent quantum key distribution. Based on a detector model which includes detector inefficiencies and dark counts, we estimate the minimal requirements on detectors needed for performing loophole-free bipartite and tripartite Bell tests. Our numerical investigation is based on a hierarchy of semidefinite programs for characterizing possible quantum correlations. We find that for bipartite setups with two measurement choices and our detector model, the optimal inequality for a Bell test is equivalent to the Clauser–Horne inequality.

Scalable repeater architectures for multi-party states

The vision to develop quantum networks entails multi-user applications, which require the generation of long-distance multi-party entangled states. The current rapid experimental progress in building prototype-networks calls for new design concepts to guide future developments. Here we describe an experimentally feasible scheme implementing a two-dimensional repeater network for robust distribution of three-party entangled states of GHZ type in the presence of excitation losses and detector dark counts — the main sources of errors in real-world hardware. Our approach is based on atomic or solid state ensembles and employs built-in error filtering mechanisms peculiar to intrinsically two-dimensional networks. This allows us to overcome the performance limitation of conventional one-dimensional ensemble-based networks distributing multi-party entangled states and provides an efficient design for future experiments with a clear perspective in terms of scalability.