Single-photon description of the lossless optical Y coupler

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Schwarze, Christopher R., Manni, Anthony D., Simon, David S., Sergienko, Alexander V.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Schwarze, Christopher R.
Manni, Anthony D.
Simon, David S.
Sergienko, Alexander V.
author_facet Schwarze, Christopher R.
Manni, Anthony D.
Simon, David S.
Sergienko, Alexander V.
contents Using symmetry considerations, we derive a unitary scattering matrix for a three-port optical Y-coupler or Y-branch. The result is shown to be unique up to external phase shifts. Unlike traditional passive linear-optical one-way splitters, coupling light into the conventional output ports of the Y-coupler results in strong coherent back-reflections, making the device a hybrid between feed-forward devices like the beam splitter, which do not reverse the direction of light, and a recently considered class of directionally unbiased multiport scatterers (with dimension greater than two) which do. While the device could immediately find use as a novel scattering vertex for the implementation of quantum walks, we also design a few simple but nonetheless useful optical systems that can be constructed by taking advantage of the symmetry of the scattering process. This includes an interference-free, resource-efficient implementation of the Grover four-port and a higher-dimensional Fabry-Perot interferometer with tunable finesse. Symmetry-breaking generalizations are also considered.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_15304
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Single-photon description of the lossless optical Y coupler
Schwarze, Christopher R.
Manni, Anthony D.
Simon, David S.
Sergienko, Alexander V.
Quantum Physics
Using symmetry considerations, we derive a unitary scattering matrix for a three-port optical Y-coupler or Y-branch. The result is shown to be unique up to external phase shifts. Unlike traditional passive linear-optical one-way splitters, coupling light into the conventional output ports of the Y-coupler results in strong coherent back-reflections, making the device a hybrid between feed-forward devices like the beam splitter, which do not reverse the direction of light, and a recently considered class of directionally unbiased multiport scatterers (with dimension greater than two) which do. While the device could immediately find use as a novel scattering vertex for the implementation of quantum walks, we also design a few simple but nonetheless useful optical systems that can be constructed by taking advantage of the symmetry of the scattering process. This includes an interference-free, resource-efficient implementation of the Grover four-port and a higher-dimensional Fabry-Perot interferometer with tunable finesse. Symmetry-breaking generalizations are also considered.
title Single-photon description of the lossless optical Y coupler
topic Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.15304