Browsing by Author "Kumar, Ranjeet"

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    Process tomography of photon creation and annihilation operators
    (2012) Kumar, Ranjeet; Lvovsky, Alexander
    The photon creation and annihilation operators are cornerstones of the quantum description of the electromagnetic field. They signify the isomorphism of the optical Hilbert space to that of the harmonic oscillator and the bosonic nature of photons. We perform complete experi­mental characterization (quantum process tomography) of these operators. By measuring, via homodyne detection, their effect on coherent states, we obtain their process tensor in the Fock basis, which explicitly shows the 'raising' and 'lowering' properties of these operators with respect to photon number states. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first experin1ental demonstration of complete tomography of trace-non-preserving quantum processes. All output states are characterized through their corresponding Wigner functions. Results are also validated through theoretical modeling. Fuithermore, the photon addition and subtrac­tion operations are characterized through the diagonal elements of the process tensors and are validated through theoretical generated data using Monte Carlo simulation.