Quantum entanglement of a large number of photons

Abstract

A bipartite multiphoton entangled state is created through stimulated parametric down-conversion of strong laser pulses in a nonlinear crystal. It is shown how detectors that do not resolve photon number can be used to analyze such multiphoton states. Entanglement of up to 12 photons is detected using both the positivity of the partially transposed density matrix and a newly derived criteria. Furthermore, evidence is provided for entanglement of up to 100 photons. The multi-particle quantum state is such that even in the case of an overall photon collection and detection efficiency as low as a few percent, entanglement remains and can be detected.