Becerra’s group publishes article on multiple coherent states in Journal of Optical Society of America B
March 19, 2018
Measurement strategies for multiple coherent states based on single-shot measurements with photon counting can be useful for high bandwidth communications with high spectral efficiency. The quantum-optics group led by Elohim Becerra at UNM investigated implementations of optimized multi-state discrimination strategies based on single-shot measurements extending previous work to include realistic situations with noise and imperfections, which impact the achievable performance of the measurement.

Enhance atom-light coupling with a weaker local field
March 18, 2018
Strong atom-light coupling is the key to quantum information processing with atoms and photons. It is a common belief that a strong optical field is required to generate a strong atom-light coupling. Following this school of thought, great challenges including heating and decoherent photon scattering problems have been encountered in experiments to enhance atom-light coupling by placing atoms in the strongest trapping field, which hindered the implementing of quantum communication and quantum computing applications using atoms. Surprisingly, a recent theoretical study conducted by researchers in CQuIC and the Sandia National Labs demonstrated that, by placing the atoms at an azimuthal position where the guided probe mode of a waveguide has the lowest intensity, the atom-light coupling is the strongest for quantum measurement applications.