Quantum homodyne tomography of a two-photon Fock state

Alexei Ourjoumtsev (1) , Rosa Tualle-Brouri (1) , Philippe Grangier (1)

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Optique quantique

We present a continuous-variable experimental analysis of a two-photon Fock state of free-propagating light. This state is obtained from a pulsed non-degenerate parametric amplifier, which produces two intensity-correlated twin beams. Counting two photons in one beam projects the other beam in the desired two-photon Fock state, which is analyzed by using a pulsed homodyne detection. The Wigner function of the measured state is clearly negative. We developed a detailed analytic model which allows a fast and efficient analysis of the experimental results.

Domaines: Physique Quantique [quant-ph]

Alexei Ourjoumtsev, Rosa Tualle-Brouri, Philippe Grangier. Quantum homodyne tomography of a two-photon Fock state. Physical Review Letters, 2006, 96, pp.213601. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.213601⟩. ⟨hal-00509115⟩