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Originally published in Science Express on 9 March 2006
Science 7 April 2006:
Vol. 312. no. 5770, pp. 83 - 86
DOI: 10.1126/science.1122858
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Reports

Generating Optical Schrödinger Kittens for Quantum Information Processing

Alexei Ourjoumtsev, Rosa Tualle-Brouri, Julien Laurat, Philippe Grangier*

We present a detailed experimental analysis of a free-propagating light pulse prepared in a "Schrödinger kitten" state, which is defined as a quantum superposition of "classical" coherent states with small amplitudes. This kitten state is generated by subtracting one photon from a squeezed vacuum beam, and it clearly presents a negative Wigner function. The predicted influence of the experimental parameters is in excellent agreement with the experimental results. The amplitude of the coherent states can be amplified to transform our "Schrödinger kittens" into bigger Schrödinger cats, providing an essential tool for quantum information processing.

Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique, CNRS Unité Mixte de Recherche 8501, 91403 Orsay, France.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: philippe.grangier{at}iota.u-psud.fr

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)