Generation of the Complete Four-dimensional Bell Basis

TL;DR

This paper reports the experimental creation of a complete set of 16 orthogonal entangled Bell-like states in four-dimensional space using photon orbital angular momentum, advancing high-dimensional quantum information processing.

Contribution

It demonstrates the first experimental generation of a complete four-dimensional Bell basis using orbital angular momentum encoding.

Findings

Successfully generated 16 orthogonal high-dimensional Bell states

Applied generalized high-dimensional Pauli gates for state creation

Enables complex quantum protocols with high-dimensional states

Abstract

The Bell basis is a distinctive set of maximally entangled two-particle quantum states that forms the foundation for many quantum protocols such as teleportation, dense coding and entanglement swapping. While the generation, manipulation, and measurement of two-level quantum states is well understood, the same is not true in higher dimensions. Here we present the experimental generation of a complete set of Bell states in a four-dimensional Hilbert space, comprising of 16 orthogonal entangled Bell-like states encoded in the orbital angular momentum of photons. The states are created by the application of generalized high-dimensional Pauli gates on an initial entangled state. Our results pave the way for the application of high-dimensional quantum states in complex quantum protocols such as quantum dense coding.