Adaptive loop-based subtraction of a single photon from a traveling beam of light

TL;DR

This paper introduces an adaptive method for subtracting single photons from traveling light beams, significantly increasing success probability while maintaining operation quality, enhancing quantum state manipulation and entanglement distillation.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel adaptive technique for photon subtraction that improves success rates without compromising state quality, advancing quantum optics experiments.

Findings

Enhanced success probability in photon subtraction.

Preservation of non-Gaussian state quality.

Improved entanglement distillation performance.

Abstract

Manipulating light by adding and subtracting individual photons is a powerful approach with a principal drawback: the operations are fundamentally probabilistic and the probability is often small. This limits not only the fundamental scalability but also the number of operations that can be applied in realistic experimental settings. We propose and analyze an adaptive technique which can significantly increase the probability of success while preserving the quality of the photon subtraction. We show the improvement both in single mode preparation and manipulation of non-Gaussian states with negative Wigner functions and in two-mode entanglement distillation protocol with Gaussian states of light.