Breeding the optical Schroedinger's cat state

Abstract

Superpositions of macroscopically distinct quantum states, introduced in Schroedinger's famous Gedankenexperiment, are an epitome of quantum "strangeness" and a natural tool for determining the validity limits of quantum physics. The optical incarnation of Schroedinger's cat - the superposition of two opposite-amplitude coherent states - is also the backbone of quantum information processing in the continuous-variable domain. However, existing preparation methods limit the amplitudes of the component coherent states by about 2, which curtails the state's usefulness for fundamental and practical applications. Here we produce higher-amplitude optical Schroedinger's cats from two such states of lower amplitudes. The protocol consists in bringing the initial states into interference on a beamsplitter and a subsequent heralding quadrature measurement in one of the output channels. In the experiment, we convert a pair of negative squeezed Schroedinger's cat states of amplitude 1.25 to a single positive Schroedinger's cat of amplitude 2.15 with success probability of ~0.2. This amplitude is comparable to the highest values obtained for this state in any physical system. Our technique can be realized in an iterative manner, in principle allowing creation of Schroedinger's cat states of arbitrarily high amplitude.