Quantum Hilbert hotel

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Potoček, Václav and Miatto, Filippo M. and Mirhosseini, Mohammad and Magaña-Loaiza, Omar S. and Liapis, Andreas C. and Oi, Daniel K. L. and Boyd, Robert W. and Jeffers, John (2015) Quantum Hilbert hotel. Physical Review Letters, 115 (16). 160505. ISSN 1079-7114 (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.160505)

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Abstract

In 1924 David Hilbert conceived a paradoxical tale involving a hotel with an infinite number of rooms to illustrate some aspects of the mathematical notion of "infinity." In continuous-variable quantum mechanics we routinely make use of infinite state spaces: here we show that such a theoretical apparatus can accommodate an analog of Hilbert's hotel paradox. We devise a protocol that, mimicking what happens to the guests of the hotel, maps the amplitudes of an infinite eigenbasis to twice their original quantum number in a coherent and deterministic manner, producing infinitely many unoccupied levels in the process. We demonstrate the feasibility of the protocol by experimentally realizing it on the orbital angular momentum of a paraxial field. This new non-Gaussian operation may be exploited, for example, for enhancing the sensitivity of NOON states, for increasing the capacity of a channel, or for multiplexing multiple channels into a single one.

ORCID iDs

Potoček, Václav, Miatto, Filippo M., Mirhosseini, Mohammad, Magaña-Loaiza, Omar S., Liapis, Andreas C., Oi, Daniel K. L. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0965-9509, Boyd, Robert W. and Jeffers, John ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8573-1675;
  • Item type:Article
    ID code:54807
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    15 October 2015
    Published
    24 September 2015
    Accepted
    Subjects:Science > Physics
    Department:Faculty of Science > Physics
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:11 Dec 2015 01:40
    Last modified:11 Nov 2024 11:14
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/54807
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