Toward the Implementation of a Bigger Optical Cat State by combining Photon Addition and Subtraction Operations

Yuan-Ting Liu^1*, Po-Han Wang¹, Hsien-Yi Hsieh¹, Hua Li Chen², Zi-Hao Shi¹, Hsun-Chung Wu¹, Ole Steuernagel¹, Chien-Ming Wu¹, Ray-Kuang Lee^1,2,3

¹Institute of Photonics Technologies, National Tsinghua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
²Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
³Department of Electrical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

* Presenter:Yuan-Ting Liu, email:tim911115@gmail.com

We experimentally demonstrate the generation of optical Schrödinger cat states, by utilizing both photon addition and photon subtraction techniques on squeezed vacuum states. Clear negativity is illustrated from pure low squeezing level to impure high squeezing level, with the quantum state reconstruction from our home-made balanced homodyne detectors. Key characteristics such as generation rate, quadrature component distribution, Wigner function negativity, and cat state size are analyzed both for photon-addition and photon-subtraction.

Keywords: Optical Cat States, squeezed light, Photon Addition, Photon Subtraction, Stimulated parametric down-conversion