Interferometric detection of continuous-variable entanglement using two states

Abstract

The efficient witnessing and certification of entanglement is necessitated by its ubiquitous use in various aspects of quantum technologies. In the case of continuous-variable bipartite systems, the Shchukin--Vogel hierarchy gives necessary conditions for separability in terms of moments of the mode operators. In this work, we derive mode-operator-based witnesses for continuous-variable bipartite entanglement relying on the interference of two states. Specifically, we show how one can access higher moments of the mode operators, crucial for detecting entanglement of non-Gaussian states, using a single beamsplitter with variable phase and photon-number-resolving detectors. We demonstrate that the use of an entangled state paired with a suitable reference state is sufficient to detect entanglement in, e.g., two-mode squeezed vacuum, NOON states, and mixed entangled cat states. We also take into account experimental noise, including photon loss and detection inefficiency, as well as finite measurement statistics.