Extreme spin squeezing for photons

Abstract

We apply spin-squeezing techniques to identify and quantify highly multi-partite photonic entanglement in polarization-squeezed light. We consider a practical single-mode scenario, and find that Wineland-criterion polarization squeezing implies entanglement of a macroscopic fraction of the total photons. A Glauber-theory computation of the observable N-photon density matrix, with N up to 100, finds that N-partite entanglement is observable despite losses and without post-selection. We estimate that existing detectors could observe $\sim1000$-partite entanglement from a few dB of polarization squeezing.