Experimental characterization of bosonic photon creation and annihilation operators

TL;DR

This paper presents the first complete experimental quantum process tomography of photon creation and annihilation operators, demonstrating their fundamental bosonic properties through measurements on coherent states.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental characterization of these operators via quantum process tomography, revealing their action on photon number states.

Findings

Process tensor explicitly shows raising and lowering of photon number

First demonstration of complete tomography of non-deterministic quantum processes

Validates the bosonic nature of photons through experimental methods

Abstract

The photon creation and annihilation operators are cornerstones of the quantum description of the electromagnetic field. They signify the isomorphism of the optical Hilbert space to that of the harmonic oscillator and the bosonic nature of photons. We perform complete experimental characterization (quantum process tomography) of these operators. By measuring their effect on coherent states, we obtain their process tensor in the Fock basis, which explicitly shows the "raising" and "lowering" properties of these operators with respect to photon number states. This is the first experimental demonstration of complete tomography of non-deterministic quantum processes.