Witnessing negativity of Wigner function by estimating fidelities of cat-like states from homodyne measurements

TL;DR

This paper introduces sampling functions for estimating fidelities with cat-like states using homodyne measurements, enabling witnessing Wigner function negativity and compensating for losses.

Contribution

It provides novel sampling functions for fidelity estimation with cat-like and squeezed Fock states, facilitating negativity detection of the Wigner function.

Findings

Fidelities can be estimated from homodyne data with loss compensation.

Fidelity thresholds certify Wigner function negativity.

Method reduces statistical uncertainty in fidelity estimates.

Abstract

We derive sampling functions for estimation of quantum state fidelity with Schr\"odinger cat-like states, which are defined as superpositions of two coherent states with opposite amplitudes. We also provide sampling functions for fidelity with squeezed Fock states that can approximate the cat-like states and can be generated from Gaussian squeezed states by conditional photon subtraction. The fidelities can be determined by averaging the sampling functions over quadrature statistics measured by homodyne detection. The sampling functions are designed such that they can compensate for losses and inefficient homodyning provided that the overall efficiency exceeds certain threshold. The fidelity with an odd coherent state and the fidelity with a squeezed odd Fock state provide convenient witnesses of negativity of Wigner function of the measured state. The negativity of Wigner function at the origin of phase space is certified if any of these fidelities exceeds 0.5. Finally, we discuss the possibility of reducing the statistical uncertainty of the fidelity estimates by a suitable choice of the dependence of the number of quadrature samples on the relative phase shift between local oscillator and signal beam.