Coherence-based operational nonclassicality criteria

TL;DR

This paper introduces practical criteria for detecting nonclassical quantum coherence in various physical systems, enabling easier experimental verification of quantum states' nonclassicality under realistic conditions.

Contribution

It provides operational, experimentally feasible criteria to identify nonclassical coherence in quantum states, applicable across multiple physical platforms.

Findings

Criteria are robust under loss and noise.

Applicable to light, atoms, solid-state, and mechanical systems.

Facilitates practical detection of nonclassicality.

Abstract

The nonclassicality of quantum states is a fundamental resource for quantum technologies and quantum information tasks in general. In particular, a pivotal aspect of quantum states lies in their coherence properties, encoded in the nondiagonal terms of their density matrix in the Fock-state bosonic basis. We present operational criteria to detect the nonclassicality of individual quantum coherences that only use data obtainable in experimentally realistic scenarios. We analyze and compare the robustness of the nonclassical coherence aspects when the states pass through lossy and noisy channels. The criteria can be immediately applied to experiments with light, atoms, solid-state systems, and mechanical oscillators, thus providing a toolbox allowing practical experiments to more easily detect the nonclassicality of generated states.