We propose an optical scheme to prepare large-scale entangled networks of W states. The scheme works by simultaneously fusing three polarization-encoded W states of arbitrary size via accessing only one qubit of each W state. It is composed of a Fredkin gate (controlled-swap gate), two fusion gates [as proposed in S. K. Ozdemir et al., New J. Phys. 13, 103003 (2011)], and an H -polarized ancilla photon. Starting with three n-qubit W states, the scheme prepares a new W state with 3(n − 1) qubits after postselection if both fusion gates operate successfully, i.e., a fourfold coincidence at the detectors. The proposed scheme reduces the cost of creating arbitrarily large W states considerably when compared to previously reported schemes.

No abstract

In large quantum systems multipartite entanglement can be found in many inequivalent classes under local operations and classical communication. Preparing states of arbitrary size in different classes is important for performing a wide range of quantum protocols. W states, in particular, constitute a class with a variety of quantum networking protocols. However, all known schemes for preparing W states are probabilistic, with resource requirements increasing at least sub-exponentially. We propose a deterministic scheme for preparing W states that requires no prior entanglement and can be performed locally. We introduce an all-optical setup that can efficiently prepare W states of arbitrary size. Our scheme advances the use of W states in real-world quantum networks and could be extended to other physical systems.

Entanglement has been studied extensively for unveiling the mysteries of non-classical correlations between quantum systems. In the bipartite case, there are well known measures for quantifying entanglement such as concurrence, relative entropy of entanglement (REE) and negativity, which cannot be increased via local operations. It was found that for sets of non-maximally entangled states of two qubits, comparing these entanglement measures may lead to different entanglement orderings of the states. On the other hand, although it is not an entanglement measure and not monotonic under local operations, due to its ability of detecting multipartite entanglement, quantum Fisher information (QFI) has recently received an intense attraction generally with entanglement in the focus. In this work, we revisit the state ordering problem of general two qubit states. Generating a thousand random quantum states and performing an optimization based on local general rotations of each qubit, we calculate the maximal QFI for each state. We analyze the maximized QFI in comparison with concurrence, REE and negativity and obtain new state orderings. We show that there are pairs of states having equal maximized QFI but different values for concurrence, REE and negativity and vice versa.

Entanglement is at the heart of quantum technologies such as quantum information and quantum metrology. Providing larger quantum Fisher information (QFI), entangled systems can be better resources than separable systems in quantum metrology. However the effects on the entanglement dynamics such as decoherence usually decrease the QFI considerably. On the other hand, Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction has been shown to excite entanglement. Since an increase in entanglement does not imply an increase in QFI, and also there are cases where QFI decreases as entanglement increases, it is interesting to study the influence of DM interaction on quantum metrology. In this work, we study the QFI of thermal entanglement of two-qubit and three-qubit Heisenberg models with respect to SU(2) rotations. We show that even at high temperatures, DM interaction excites QFI of both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic models. We also show that QFI of the ferromagnetic model of two qubits can surpass the shot-noise limit of the separable states, while QFI of the antiferromagnetic model in consideration can only approach to the shot-noise limit. Our results open new insights in quantum metrology with Heisenberg models.