Emulation of quantum measurements with mixtures of coherent states

Abstract

We propose a methodology to emulate quantum phenomena arising from any non-classical quantum state using only a finite set of mixtures of coherent states. This allows us to successfully reproduce well-known quantum effects using resources that can be much more feasibly generated in the laboratory. We present a simple procedure to experimentally carry out quantum-state emulation with coherent states, illustrate it emulating multi-photon NOON states with few phase-averaged coherent states, and demonstrate its capabilities in observing fundamental quantum-mechanical effects, such as the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect, violating Bell inequalities and witnessing quantum non-classicality.