Interference of single photons emitted by entangled atoms in free space

Abstract

The generation and manipulation of entanglement between isolated particles has precipitated rapid progress in quantum information processing. Entanglement is also known to play an essential role in the optical properties of atomic ensembles, but fundamental effects in the controlled emission and absorption from small, well-defined numbers of entangled emitters in free space have remained unobserved. Here we present the control of the spontaneous emission rate of a single photon from a pair of distant, entangled atoms into a free-space optical mode. Changing the length of the optical path connecting the atoms modulates the emission rate with a visibility $V = 0.27 \pm 0.03$ determined by the degree of entanglement shared between the atoms, corresponding directly to the concurrence $\mathcal{C_{\rho}}= 0.31 \pm 0.10$ of the prepared state. This scheme, together with population measurements, provides a fully optical determination of the amount of entanglement. Furthermore, large sensitivity of the interference phase evolution points to applications of the presented scheme in high-precision gradient sensing.