Robust Matter-Light Entanglement Generation and Distribution

这项工作涉及原子物理学和量子光学一系列主题的研究和教育。该项目的主要目标是开发利用光子和超冷原子产生、存储和分配量子力学纠缠的新方法。 该方法利用超冷原子激发到里德伯态的相互作用产生纠缠，而原子基态用于信息存储。通过将原子放置在光学腔的高度抛光的镜子之间，同时将原子限制在激光产生的光学晶格中并将其冷却到超低温，可以增加原子-光相互作用的强度。计划中的活动预计将导致开发新一代纠缠量子态的创建，分发和存储能力，并为分布式量子计算的未来实现做出贡献。此外，大规模纠缠态的有效产生将推动量子增强技术的发展。这项研究将继续研究量子信息的产生，存储和分布，使用单个光子和捕获的超冷原子。自旋波超精细量子比特与编码在单光子的偏振、空间或频率自由度中的光学量子比特的纠缠，以及两个远程自旋波量子比特的纠缠，以及近红外和电信之间的单光子波长转换，以前已经被证明。最近，量子存储时间已经延长到10秒以上，而原子里德伯能级的强相互作用已经用于产生单光子，多体量子态和物质-光纠缠。这开辟了一条通往具有上级扩展性的功能性量子网络架构的道路。将探讨以下一系列目标：（一）对基态和里德伯原子进行紧密的、三维的、状态不敏感的限制;（二）在铷同位素混合物中编码的量子位之间建立里德伯量子门;（三）通过连续生成纠缠量子位对和三重态、光子干涉和光记忆量子态映射，实现可扩展的多量子位原子纠缠态;（iv）具有第二尺度寿命的多量子比特纠缠量子态的存储。计划中的活动将加快开发新一代多量子比特纠缠态的创建、分发和存储能力，并为未来实现长距离量子中继器和分布式量子计算做出贡献。此外，多量子比特纠缠态的有效产生将影响基础物理研究和推进量子增强技术。

This work involves research and education on a set of topics in atomic physics and quantum optics. The main objective of the project is to develop new methods for the generation, storage, and distribution of quantum mechanical entanglement utilizing photons and ultra-cold atoms. The approach employs interactions of ultra-cold atoms excited into Rydberg states for entanglement generation while ground atomic levels are used for information storage. The strength of the atom-light interactions will be increased by placing the atoms between highly polished mirrors of an optical cavity, while confining the atoms to laser-generated optical lattices and cooling them to ultra-low temperatures. The planned activity is expected to result in the development of a new generation of capabilities for the creation, distribution and storage of entangled quantum states and contribute to future implementations of distributed quantum computing. Additionally, efficient production of massively entangled states will advance quantum-enhanced technologies. This research will continue a program of investigating the generation, storage, and distribution of quantum information, using individual photons and trapped ultra-cold atoms. The entanglement of spin-wave hyperfine qubits to optical qubits encoded in the polarization, spatial or frequency degrees of freedom of single photons, as well as entanglement of two remote spin-wave qubits, and single-photon wavelength conversion between the near-infrared and the telecom has been previously demonstrated. Most recently, quantum memory times have been extended beyond 10 seconds, while strong interactions of atomic Rydberg levels have been employed for the generation of single photons, many-body quantum states, and matter-light entanglement. This opens a path toward functional quantum networking architectures of superior scaling. The following set of goals will be explored: (i) tight, three-dimensional, state-insensitive confinement of ground and Rydberg atoms; (ii) Rydberg quantum gates between qubits encoded in Rubidium isotopic mixtures; (iii) scalable multi-qubit atomic entangled states by sequential generation of entangled qubit pairs and triples, photon interferences and light-memory quantum state mappings; (iv) storage of multi-qubit entangled quantum states with second-scale lifetimes. The planned activity will expedite the development of a new generation of capabilities for the creation, distribution and storage of multi-qubit entangled states and contributes to future implementations of long-distance quantum repeaters and distributed quantum computing. Moreover efficient production of multi-qubit entangled states will impact fundamental physics investigations and advance quantum-enhanced technologies.