Topological Protection of Photonic Path Entanglement

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates theoretically that photonic topological insulators can protect quantum information transport in photonic networks from disorder, leveraging topological robustness for quantum communication and computation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of topological insulators to safeguard quantum information transport in photonic systems, combining topological physics with quantum information science.

Findings

Topological protection enhances robustness against disorder.

Quantum information transport remains intact despite imperfections.

Potential for improved quantum communication devices.

Abstract

The recent advent of photonic topological insulators has opened the door to using the robustness of topologically protected transport (originated in the domain of condensed matter physics) in optical devices and in quantum simulation. Concurrently, quantum walks in photonic networks have been shown to yield exponential speedup for certain algorithms, such as Boson sampling. Here we theoretically demonstrate that photonic topological insulators can robustly protect the transport of quantum information through photonic networks, despite the presence of disorder.