Abstract:
We study optical schemes for generating both a displaced photon and a displaced qubit via conditional measurement. Combining one mode prepared in different microscopic states (one-mode qubit, single photon, vacuum state) and another mode in macroscopic states (coherent state, single photon added coherent state), a conditional state in the other output mode exhibits properties of a superposition of the displaced vacuum and a single photon. We propose to use the displaced qubit and entangled states composed of the displaced photon as components for quantum information processing. Basic states of such a qubit are distinguishable from each other with high fidelity. We show that the qubit reveals both microscopic and macroscopic properties. Entangled displaced states with a coherent phase as an additional degree of freedom are introduced. We show that additional degree of freedom enables to implement complete Bell state measurement of the entangled displaced photon states. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.