We introduce a complete Bell measurement on atomic qubits based on two-photon interactions with optical cavities and discrimination of coherent states of light. The dynamical system is described by the Dicke model for two three-level atoms interacting in two-photon resonance with a single mode of the radiation field, which is known to effectively generate a nonlinear two-photon interaction between the field and two states of each atom. For initial coherent states with a large mean photon number, the field state is well represented by two coherent states at half-revival time. For certain product states of the atoms, we prove the coherent generation of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states with two atomic qubits and two orthogonal Schrödinger cat states as a third qubit. For arbitrary atomic states, we show that discriminating the two states of the field corresponds to different operations in the Bell basis of the atoms. By repeating this process with a second cavity prepared in a phase-shifted coherent state, we demonstrate the implementation of a complete Bell measurement. The experimental feasibility of our protocols is discussed for cavity-QED, circuit-QED, and trapped-ion setups.

• Received 14 November 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.99.023854