Experimental cyclic inter-conversion between Coherence and Quantum Correlations

Abstract

Quantum resource theories seek to quantify sources of non-classicality that bestow quantum technologies their operational advantage. Chief among these are studies of quantum correlations and quantum coherence. The former to isolate non-classicality in the correlations between systems, the latter to capture non-classicality of quantum superpositions within a single physical system. Here we present a scheme that cyclically inter-converts between these resources without loss. The first stage converts coherence present in an input system into correlations with an ancilla. The second stage harnesses these correlations to restore coherence on the input system by measurement of the ancilla. We experimentally demonstrate this inter-conversion process using linear optics. Our experiment highlights the connection between non-classicality of correlations and non-classicality within local quantum systems, and provides potential flexibilities in exploiting one resource to perform tasks normally associated with the other.