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We investigate theoretically the magnetic spin-flip transitions of neutral atoms trapped near a superconducting slab. Our calculations are based on a quantum-theoretical treatment of electromagnetic radiation near dielectric and metallic bodies. Specific results are given for rubidium atoms near a niobium superconductor. At the low frequencies typical of atomic transitions, we find that BCS theory greatly overestimates coherence effects, which are much less pronounced when quasiparticle lifetime effects are included through Eliashberg theory. At $4.2\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}$, the typical atomic spin lifetime is found to be larger than $1000\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{s}$, even for atom-superconductor distances of one $1\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{m}$. This constitutes a large enhancement in comparison with normal metals.

We investigate the feasibility of using ultracold neutral atoms trapped near a thin superconductor to study vortex noise close to the Kosterlitz-Thouless-Berezinskii transition temperature. Alkali atoms such as rubidium probe the magnetic field produced by the vortices. We show that the relaxation time T{sub 1} of the Zeeman sublevel populations can be conveniently adjusted to provide long observation times. We also show that the transverse relaxation times T{sub 2} for Zeeman coherences are ideal for studying the vortex noise. We briefly consider the motion of atom clouds held close to the surface as a method for monitoring the vortex motion.

We investigate the possibility to trap ultracold atoms near the outside of a metallic carbon nanotube (CN) which we imagine to use as a miniaturized current-carrying wire. We calculate atomic spin flip lifetimes and compare the strength of the Casimir-Polder potential with the magnetic trapping potential. Our analysis indicates that the Casimir-Polder force is the dominant loss mechanism and we compute the minimum distance to the carbon nanotube at which an atom can be trapped., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures

We introduce a complex scaling discrete dipole approximation (CSDDA) method and study single-shot x-ray diffraction patterns from non-spherical, absorbing nanotargets in the limit of linear response. The convergence of the employed Born series-based iterative solution of the discrete dipole approximation problem via optimal complex mixing turns out to be substantially faster than the original approach with real-valued mixing coefficients, without additional numerical effort per iteration. The CSDDA method is employed to calculate soft x-ray diffraction patterns from large icosahedral silver nanoparticles with diameters up to about . Our analysis confirms the requirement of relatively long wavelengths to map truly 3D structure information to the experimentally accessible regions of 2D scattering images. On the other hand, we show that short wavelengths are preferable to retain visibility of fine structures such as interference fringes in the scattering patterns when using ultrashort x-ray pulses in the attosecond domain. A simple model is presented to estimate the minimal pulse duration below which the fringe contrast vanishes. Knowledge of the impact of the bandwidth of short pulses on the diffraction images is important to extract information on ultrafast dynamical processes from time-resolved x-ray diffractive imaging experiments on free nanoparticles, in particular at long wavelengths.

Dispersion forces have a sizeable effect on the energy levels of highly excited Rydberg atoms when brought close to material surfaces. Rydberg atoms experience energy shifts in the GHz range at micrometer distances, suggestive of considerable state admixture. We show that despite the non-applicability of perturbation theory for Rydberg atoms near a surface, the energy shift due to the dispersion interaction can be obtained from an exact diagonalization of the interaction Hamiltonian by finding the zeros of the Pick function. Moreover, we show that contrary to intuition from single-mode approaches, surface-induced state mixing is generally suppressed even for large interaction energies. We give a tailored example where mixing is observable despite this effect.

We give a unified approach to macroscopic QED in arbitrary linearly responding media, based on the quite general, nonlocal form of the conductivity tensor as it can be introduced within the framework of linear response theory, and appropriately chosen sets of bosonic variables. The formalism generalizes the quantization schemes that have been developed previously for diverse classes of linear media. In particular, it turns out that the scheme developed for locally responding linear magnetodielectric media can be recovered from the general scheme as a limiting case for weakly spatially dispersive media. With regard to practical applications, we furthermore address the dielectric approximation for the conductivity tensor and the surface impedance method for the calculation of the Green tensor of the macroscopic Maxwell equations, the two central quantities of the theory., 22 pages, no figures

We describe a practical implementation of a semi-deterministic photon gun based on the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage pumping and the nonlinear tuning of the photonic density of states in a photonic band-gap material. We show that this device allows deterministic and unidirectional production of single photons with a high repetition rate of the order of 100 kHz. We also discuss specific 3D photonic microstructure architectures in which our model can be realized and the feasibility of implementing such a device using Er3+ ions that produce single photons at the telecommunication wavelength of 1.55 microns.

In this article we are concerned with some possible physical realizations of quantum gates that are useful for quantum information processing. After a brief introduction into the subject, in Sect. 2 we focus on a particular way of using atoms in one-dimensional optical lattices as carriers of the quantum information. As an alternative, in Sect. 3 the information carriers are photons that interact via effective nonlinearities which arises from mixing at passive linear optical elements and post-selection through photodetection. These two seemingly different implementations have in common that their decoherence mechanism is described by a single theory, namely that of quantum electrodynamics in causal media which will be the subject of Sect. 4. Figure 1 should serve as an overview of the subject areas covered.

Quantum communication schemes widely use dielectric four-port devices as basic elements for constructing optical quantum channels. Dielectrics with complex permittivity are typical examples of noisy quantum channels in which quantum coherence will not be preserved. Basing on quantization of phenomenological electrodynamics, we construct the transformation relating the output quantum state to the input quantum state without placing frequency restrictions. Knowledge of the full transformed quantum state enables us to compute the entanglement contained in the output state.

We present a consistent quantum theory of the electromagnetic field in nonlinearly responding causal media, with special emphasis on $\chi^{(2)}$ media. Starting from QED in linearly responding causal media, we develop a method to construct the nonlinear Hamiltonian expressed in terms of the complex nonlinear susceptibility in a quantum mechanically consistent way. In particular we show that the method yields the nonlinear noise polarization, which together with the linear one is responsible for intrinsic quantum decoherence., Comment: 4 pages, no figures

We derive a lower limit to the amount of absorptive loss present in passive linear optical devices such as a beam splitter. We choose a particularly simple beam splitter geometry, a single planar slab surrounded by vacuum, which already reveals the important features of the theory. It is shown that, using general causality requirements and statistical arguments, the lower bound depends on the frequency of the incident light and the transverse resonance frequency of a suitably chosen single-resonance model only. For symmetric beam splitters and reasonable assumptions on the resonance frequency $\omega_T$, the lower absorption bound is $p_{\min}\approx 10^{-6}(\omega/\omega_T)^4$., Comment: 4 pages, 2 eps figures, typeset using RevTeX4

Entanglement distillation aims at preparing highly entangled states out of a supply of weakly entangled pairs, using local devices and classical communication only. In this note we discuss the experimentally feasible schemes for optical continuous-variable entanglement distillation that have been presented in [D.E. Browne, J. Eisert, S. Scheel, and M.B. Plenio, Phys. Rev. A 67, 062320 (2003)] and [J. Eisert, D.E. Browne, S. Scheel, and M.B. Plenio, Annals of Physics (NY) 311, 431 (2004)]. We emphasize their versatility in particular with regards to the detection process and discuss the merits of the two proposed detection schemes, namely photo-detection and homodyne detection, in the light of experimental realizations of this idea becoming more and more feasible., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, contribution to conference proceedings

We present a first-principles derivation of spatial atomic-sublevel decoherence near dielectric and metallic surfaces. The theory is based on the electromagnetic-field quantization in absorbing dielectric media. We derive an expression for the time-variation of the off-diagonal matrix element of the atomic density matrix for arbitrarily shaped substrates. For planar multilayered substrates we find that for small lateral separations of the atom's possible positions the spatial coherence decreases quadratically with the separation and inversely to the squared atom-surface distance., 9 pages, 2 figures

We derive scaling laws for the spin decoherence of neutral atoms trapped near conducting and superconducting plane surfaces. A new result for thin films sheds light on the measurement of Y.J. Lin, I. Teper, C. Chin, and V. Vuleti\'{c} [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{92}, 050404 (2004)]. Our calculation is based on a quantum-theoretical treatment of electromagnetic radiation near metallic bodies [P.K. Rekdal, S. Scheel, P.L. Knight, and E.A. Hinds, Phys. Rev. A \textbf{70}, 013811 (2004)]. We show that there is a critical atom-surface distance that maximizes the spin relaxation rate and we show how this depends on the skin depth and thickness of the metal surface. In the light of this impedance-matching effect we discuss the spin relaxation to be expected above a thin superconducting niobium layer., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, typeset using RevTeX

Nonlinear optical quantum gates can be created probabilistically using only single photon sources, linear optical elements and photon-number resolving detectors. These gates are heralded but operate with probabilities much less than one. There is currently a large gap between the performance of the known circuits and the established upper bounds on their success probabilities. One possibility for increasing the probability of success of such gates is feed-forward, where one attempts to correct certain failure events that occurred in the gate's operation. In this brief report we examine the role of feed-forward in improving the success probability. In particular, for the non-linear sign shift gate, we find that in a three-mode implementation with a single round of feed-forward the optimal average probability of success is approximately given by p= 0.272. This value is only slightly larger than the general optimal success probability without feed-forward, P= 0.25., Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figures, typeset using RevTex4, problems with figures resolved

We derive the spontaneous and thermal spin-flip rates for a neutral two-level ultra-cold atom that is coupled to a magnetic field. We apply this theory to an atom in the vicinity of a 2-layer cylindrical absorbing dielectric body surrounded by an unbounded homogeneous medium. An analytical expression is obtained for the spontaneous and thermal spin-flip rate in this particular geometry. The corresponding lifetime is then computed numerically. We compare these theoretical lifetimes to those measured by Jones et al. [M.P.A. Jones, C.J. Vale, D. Sahagun, B.V. Hall, and E.A. Hinds, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 91}, 080401 (2003)]. We investigate how the lifetime depends on the materials (skin depths) of the cylindrical body. We also show how scaling of the dimensions of the cylindrical body affects the lifetime when (i) the distance from the wire to the atom is fixed and (ii) when the distance from the wire to the atom is scaled., Comment: 9 pages, typeset using Revtex4, 5 PS figures

Triggered single-photon sources produce the vacuum state with non-negligible probability, but produce a much smaller multiphoton component. We describe a method for increasing the probability of a single photon via a chain of beam splitters. This method has the drawbacks that it introduces a significant multiphoton component, and it can not be used to increase the probability for a single photon above 1/2. Part of the reason for these drawbacks is the incoherence in the photon sources. If the photon sources produced pure states rather than incoherent superpositions, it would be possible to obtain a perfect single photon output. The method for incoherent inputs is robust against detector inefficiencies, but sensitive to dark counts and the multiphoton component in the input.

We develop an abstract way of defining linear-optics networks designed to perform quantum information tasks such as quantum gates. We will be mainly concerned with the nonlinear sign shift gate, but it will become obvious that all other gates can be treated in a similar manner. The abstract scheme is extremely well suited for analytical as well as numerical investigations since it reduces the number of parameters for a general setting. With that we show numerically and partially analytically for a wide class of states that the success probability of generating a nonlinear sign shift gate does not exceed 1/4 which to our knowledge is the strongest bound to date., Comment: 8 pages, typeset using RevTex4, 5 EPS figures

Triggered single-photon sources produce the vacuum state with non-negligible probability, but produce a much smaller multiphoton component. It is therefore reasonable to approximate the output of these photon sources as a mixture of the vacuum and single-photon states. We show that it is impossible to increase the probability for a single photon using linear optics and photodetection on fewer than four modes. This impossibility is due to the incoherence of the inputs; if the inputs were pure-state superpositions, it would be possible to obtain a perfect single-photon output. In the more general case, a chain of beam splitters can be used to increase the probability for a single photon, but at the expense of adding an additional multiphoton component. This improvement is robust against detector inefficiencies, but is degraded by dark counts or multiphoton components in the input., Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures

By using the abstract linear-optical network derived in [S. Scheel and N. L\"utkenhaus, New J. Phys. \textbf{6}, 51 (2004)] we show that for the lowest possible ancilla photon numbers the probability of success of realizing a (single-shot) generalized nonlinear sign shift gate on an ($N+1$)-dimensional signal state scales as $1/N^2$. We limit ourselves to single-shot gates without conditional feed-forward. We derive our results by using determinants of Vandermonde-type over a polynomial basis which is closely related to the well-known Jacobi polynomials., Comment: 10 pages, RevTeX4, 1 EPS figure

We present a quantization scheme for the electromagnetic field interacting with atomic systems in the presence of dispersing and absorbing magnetodielectric media, including left-handed material having negative real part of the refractive index. The theory is applied to the spontaneous decay of a two-level atom at the center of a spherical free-space cavity surrounded by magnetodielectric matter of overlapping band-gap zones. Results for both big and small cavities are presented, and the problem of local-field corrections within the real-cavity model is addressed., Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, RevTex

We investigate the generation of nonlinear operators with single photon sources, linear optical elements and appropriate measurements of auxiliary modes. We provide a framework for the construction of useful single-mode and two-mode quantum gates necessary for all-optical quantum information processing. We focus our attention generally on using minimal physical resources while providing a transparent and algorithmic way of constructing these operators., 13 pages, 7 eps figures, typeset using revtex4

Quantization of the phenomenological Maxwell theory of the electromagnetic field in dispersive and absorbing dielectrics has been of increasing interest over the last years since it allows for a consistent formulation of quantum optics in the presence of dielectric bodies. We show, using a Dyson-type integral representation of the Green tensor, that the quantization scheme is consistent with QED for both isotropic and anisotropic media and therefore applies to arbitrary linear Kramers-Kronig media including amplifying media.

We have developed a quantum theory of the action of attenuating and amplifying four-port devices starting from the canonical quantization of the electromagnetic field in arbitrary linear, causal dielectrics. In particular, we have presented formulas for calculating the quantum state of the outgoing fields from the quantum state of the incoming fields and the device for given complex refractive-index profile without placing frequency restrictions.

We present an event-ready procedure that is capable of distilling Gaussian two-mode entangled states from a supply of weakly entangled states that have become mixed in a decoherence process. This procedure relies on passive optical elements and photon detectors distinguishing the presence and the absence of photons, but does not make use of photon counters. We identify fixed points of the iteration map, and discuss in detail its convergence properties. Necessary and sufficient criteria for the convergence to two-mode Gaussian states are presented. On the basis of various examples we discuss the performance of the procedure as far as the increase of the degree of entanglement and two-mode squeezing is concerned. Finally, we consider imperfect operations and outline the robustness of the scheme under non-unit detection efficiencies of the detectors. This analysis implies that the proposed protocol can be implemented with currently available technology and detector efficiencies., Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures

Two mode squeezed states can be used to achieve Heisenberg limit scaling in interferometry: a phase shift of $\delta \phi \approx 2.76 / < N >$ can be resolved. The proposed scheme relies on balanced homodyne detection and can be implemented with current technology. The most important experimental imperfections are studied and their impact quantified., Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures

We show that no distillation protocol for Gaussian quantum states exists that relies on (i) arbitrary local unitary operations that preserve the Gaussian character of the state and (ii) homodyne detection together with classical communication and postprocessing by means of local Gaussian unitary operations on two symmetric identically prepared copies. This is in contrast to the finite-dimensional case, where entanglement can be distilled in an iterative protocol using two copies at a time. The ramifications for the distribution of Gaussian states over large distances will be outlined. We also comment on the generality of the approach and sketch the most general form of a Gaussian local operation with classical communication in a bipartite setting.

How mixed can one component of a bi-partite system be initially and still become entangled through interaction with a thermalized partner? We address this question here. In particular, we consider the question of how mixed a two-level system and a field mode may be such that free entanglement arises in the course of the time evolution according to a Jaynes-Cummings type interaction. We investigate the situation for which the two-level system is initially in mixed state taken from a one-parameter set, whereas the field has been prepared in an arbitrary thermal state. Depending on the particular choice for the initial state and the initial temperature of the quantised field mode, three cases can be distinguished: (i) free entanglement will be created immediately, (ii) free entanglement will be generated, but only at a later time different from zero, (iii) the partial transpose of the joint state remains positive at all times. It will be demonstrated that increasing the initial temperature of the field mode may cause the joint state to become distillable during the time evolution, in contrast to a non-distillable state at lower initial temperatures. We further assess the generated entanglement quantitatively, by evaluating the logarithmic negativity numerically, and by providing an analytical upper bound., 5 pages, 2 figures. Contribution to the proceedings of the 'International Conference on Quantum Information', Oviedo, July 13-18, 2002. Discusses sudden changes of entanglement properties in a dynamical quantum model

We describe a practical implementation of a (semi-deterministic) photon gun based on stimulated Raman adiabatic passage pumping and the strong enhancement of the photonic density of states in a photonic band-gap material. We show that this device allows {\em deterministic} and {\em unidirectional} production of single photons with a high repetition rate of the order of 100kHz. We also discuss specific 3D photonic microstructure architectures in which our model can be realized and the feasibility of implementing such a device using ${Er}^{3+}$ ions that produce single photons at the telecommunication wavelength of $1.55 \mu$m., Comment: 4 pages, 4 EPS figures

The influence of losses in the interferometric generation and the transmission of continuous-variable entangled light is studied, with special emphasis on Gaussian states. Based on the theory of quantum-state transformation at absorbing dielectric devices, the amount of entanglement is quantified by means of the relative-entropy measure. Upper bounds of entanglement and the distance to the set of separable Gaussian states are calculated. Compared with the distance measure, the bounds can substantially overestimate the entanglement. In particular, they do not show the drastic decrease of entanglement with increasing mean photon number, as does the distance measure., Comment: 11 pages, RevTeX, 11 eps figures

Recently two methods have been developed for the quantization of the electromagnetic field in general dispersing and absorbing linear dielectrics. The first is based upon the introduction of a quantum Langevin current in Maxwell's equations [T. Gruner and D.-G. Welsch, Phys. Rev. A 53, 1818 (1996); Ho Trung Dung, L. Kn\"{o}ll, and D.-G. Welsch, Phys. Rev. A 57, 3931 (1998); S. Scheel, L. Kn\"{o}ll, and D.-G. Welsch, Phys. Rev. A 58, 700 (1998)], whereas the second makes use of a set of auxiliary fields, followed by a canonical quantization procedure [A. Tip, Phys. Rev. A 57, 4818 (1998)]. We show that both approaches are equivalent., Comment: 7 pages, RevTeX, no figures

Applying the recently developed formalism of quantum-state transformation at absorbing dielectric four-port devices [L.~Kn\"oll, S.~Scheel, E.~Schmidt, D.-G.~Welsch, and A.V.~Chizhov, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 59}, 4716 (1999)], we calculate the quantum state of the outgoing modes of a two-mode squeezed vacuum transmitted through optical fibers of given extinction coefficients. Using the Peres--Horodecki separability criterion for continuous variable systems [R.~Simon, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 84}, 2726 (2000)], we compute the maximal length of transmission of a two-mode squeezed vacuum through an absorbing system for which the transmitted state is still inseparable. Further, we calculate the maximal gain for which inseparability can be observed in an amplifying setup. Finally, we estimate an upper bound of the entanglement preserved after transmission through an absorbing system. The results show that the characteristic length of entanglement degradation drastically decreases with increasing strength of squeezing., Comment: Paper presented at the International Conference on Quantum Optics and VIII Seminar on Quantum Optics, Raubichi, Belarus, May 28-31, 2000, 11 pages, LaTeX2e, 4 eps figures

A general theory of the interaction of the quantized electromagnetic field with atoms in the presence of dispersing and absorbing dielectric bodies of given Kramers--Kronig consistent permittivities is developed. It is based on a source-quantity representation of the electromagnetic field, in which the electromagnetic-field operators are expressed in terms of a continuous set of fundamental bosonic fields via the Green tensor of the classical problem. Introducing scalar and vector potentials, the formalism is extended in order to include in the theory the interaction of the quantized electromagnetic field with additional atoms. Both the minimal-coupling scheme and the multipolar-coupling scheme are considered. The theory replaces the standard concept of mode decomposition which fails for complex permittivities. It enables us to treat the effects of dispersion and absorption in a consistent way and to give a unified approach to the atom-field interaction, without any restriction to a particular interaction regime in a particular frequency range. All relevant information about the dielectric bodies such as form and intrinsic dispersion and absorption is contained in the Green tensor. The application of the theory to the spontaneous decay of an excited atom in the presence of dispersing and absorbing bodies is addressed., Paper presented at the International Conference on Quantum Optics and VIII Seminar on Quantum Optics, Raubichi, Belarus, May 28-31, 2000, 14 pages, LaTeX2e, no figures

Dielectric four-port devices play an important role in optical quantum information processing. Since for causality reasons the permittivity is a complex function of frequency, dielectrics are typical examples of noisy quantum channels, which cannot preserve quantum coherence. To study the effects of quantum decoherence, we start from the quantized electromagnetic field in an arbitrary Kramers--Kronig dielectric of given complex permittivity and construct the transformation relating the output quantum state to the input quantum state, without placing restrictions on the frequency. We apply the formalism to some typical examples in quantum communication. In particular we show that for entangled qubits the Bell-basis states $|��^\pm>$ are more robust against decoherence than the states $|��^\pm>$., 12 pages, revtex, 10 eps figures, minor corrections in Appendix

Starting from the quantized version of Maxwell's equations for the electromagnetic field in an arbitrary linear Kramers-Kronig dielectric, spontaneous decay of the excited state of a two-level atom embedded in a dispersive and absorbing medium is studied and the decay rate is calculated. The calculations are performed for both the (Clausius-Mosotti) virtual cavity model and the (Glauber-Lewenstein) real cavity model. It is shown that owing to nonradiative decay associated with absorption the rate of spontaneous decay sensitively depends on the cavity radius when the atomic transition frequency approaches an absorption band of the medium. Only when the effect of absorption is fully disregarded, then the familiar local-field correction factors are recovered., Comment: 28 pages, 6 figures, typeset using RevTeX

The recently derived input-output relations for the radiation field at a dispersive and absorbing four-port device [T. Gruner and D.-G. Welsch, Phys. Rev. A 54, 1661 (1996)] are used to derive the unitary transformation that relates the output quantum state to the input quantum state, including radiation and matter and without placing frequency restrictions. It is shown that for each frequency the transformation can be regarded as a well-behaved SU(4) group transformation that can be decomposed into a product of U(2) and SU(2) group transformations. Each of them may be thought of as being realized by a particular lossless four-port device. If for narrow-bandwidth radiation far from the medium resonances the absorption matrix of the four-port device can be disregarded, the well-known SU(2) group transformation for a lossless device is recognized. Explicit formulas for the transformation of Fock-states and coherent states are given., Comment: 24 pages, RevTeX

A recently developed scheme [S. Scheel, L. Knoll, and D.-G. Welsch, Phys. Rev. A 58, 700 (1998)] for quantizing the macroscopic electromagnetic field in linear dispersive and absorbing dielectrics satisfying the Kramers-Kronig relations is used to derive the quantum local-field correction for the standard virtual-sphere-cavity model. The electric and magnetic local-field operators are shown to be consistent with QED only if the polarization noise is fully taken into account. It is shown that the polarization fluctuations in the local field can dramatically change the spontaneous decay rate, compared with the familiar result obtained from the classical local-field correction. In particular, the spontaneous emission rate strongly depends on the radius of the local-field virtual cavity., Comment: 7 pages, using RevTeX, 4 figures

An effective Hamiltonian for the second-order nonlinear process of parametric downconversion in the presence of absorption is derived. The electromagnetic field is quantized using the Green function method. Heisenberg's equations of motion for the interaction of a single atom with a driving electric field are then solved to second order in perturbation theory in the rotating-wave approximation. The real-cavity model is used to embed the interacting atom in a bulk medium and correct for local field effects of the material. The resulting Hamiltonian is found to be trilinear in the electric and noise polarization fields and reduces to the phenomenological nonlinear Hamiltonian for the cases where absorption vanishes.

We consider the statistical properties of photon detection with imperfect detectors that exhibit dark counts and less than unit efficiency, in the context of tomographic reconstruction. In this context, the detectors are used to implement certain POVMs that would allow to reconstruct the quantum state or quantum process under consideration. Here we look at the intermediate step of inferring outcome probabilities from measured outcome frequencies, and show how this inference can be performed in a statistically sound way in the presence of detector imperfections. Merging outcome probabilities for different sets of POVMs into a consistent quantum state picture has been treated elsewhere [K.M.R. Audenaert and S. Scheel, New J. Phys. 11, 023028 (2009)]. Single-photon pulsed measurements as well as continuous wave measurements are covered., Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures

We study the nonequilibrium Casimir-Polder force on an atom prepared in an incoherent superposition of internal energy-eigenstates, which is placed in a magnetoelectric environment of nonuniform temperature. After solving the coupled atom--field dynamics within the framework of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics, we derive a general expression for the thermal Casimir-Polder force., Comment: 5 pages

We present a novel quantum tomographic reconstruction method based on Bayesian inference via the Kalman filter update equations. The method not only yields the maximum likelihood/optimal Bayesian reconstruction, but also a covariance matrix expressing the measurement uncertainties in a complete way. From this covariance matrix the error bars on any derived quantity can be easily calculated. This is a first step towards the broader goal of devising an omnibus reconstruction method that could be adapted to any tomographic setup with little effort and that treats measurement uncertainties in a statistically well-founded way. In this first part we restrict ourselves to the important subclass of tomography based on measurements with discrete outcomes (as opposed to continuous ones), and we also ignore any measurement imperfections (dark counts, less than unit detector efficiency, etc.), which will be treated in a follow-up paper. We illustrate our general theory on real tomography experiments of quantum optical information processing elements., published version; overview of method added

Teleportation of an unknown quantum state is an interesting issue in quantum information processing. Unit fidelity is achieved if sender and receiver share a maximally entangled state corresponding to the Hilbert space of the quantum state to be teleported. Realistic experiments necessarily make use of passive optical devices such as beam splitters and optical fibers which show losses. Losses however, are known to degrade the entanglement content, and hence the teleportation fidelity, of any given quantum state. This is due to the interaction with a noisy environment, say, an optical fiber. We combine two methods, multiparticle entanglement and appropriate filtering, to ‘restore’ some of the entanglement lost during the transmission process. The filtering parameter and the basis used in the projective measurement of the multiparticle-entangled state can be optimized for given material properties (refractive index, fiber length).

We introduce a protocol that maps finite-dimensional pure input states onto approximately Gaussian states in an iterative procedure. This protocol can be used to distill highly entangled bi-partite Gaussian states from a supply of weakly entangled pure Gaussian states. The entire procedure requires only the use of passive optical elements and photon detectors that solely distinguish between the presence and absence of photons., Some typographical errors corrected and discussions extended, title changed