Environment-Assisted Decoherence Suppression of Optical Non-Gaussian States

TL;DR

This paper presents a Gaussian-only method to suppress loss-induced decoherence in optical quantum states, enhancing fidelity and negativity, and applicable to various non-Gaussian states and platforms.

Contribution

The authors introduce a novel environment-assisted, feedforward-based scheme that mitigates optical loss effects without requiring non-Gaussian operations.

Findings

Effectively suppresses loss-induced noise in non-Gaussian states

Preserves higher fidelity and Wigner negativity compared to unsuppressed states

Demonstrates applicability for multiple loss conditions and state types

Abstract

Optical loss is a common bottleneck in photonic quantum information processing, undermining the quantum advantage over classical approaches. Although several countermeasures, such as quantum distillation and error correction, have been proposed, they typically require experimentally demanding non-Gaussian operations. Here, we demonstrate a Gaussian-only scheme that suppresses loss-induced decoherence for general, unknown optical quantum states. By injecting a squeezed vacuum state into an environment of the loss channel and performing feedforward based on environmental monitoring, the scheme effectively suppresses loss-induced noise. Our programmable loop-based optical circuit allows us to implement the scheme for several types of loss-sensitive non-Gaussian states under various loss conditions for up to five steps, and directly compare the results with the unsuppressed case. Our results show that the scheme consistently mitigates state degradation, preserving higher fidelity and Wigner negativity than without suppression. This approach can be applied to mitigating a broad class of errors in optical systems and extending quantum memory lifetimes. Moreover, it is compatible with other loss-suppression techniques and extendable to physical platforms beyond optics, offering a promising route toward reducing the overhead required for fault-tolerant quantum information processing.