title: Carving Complex Many-Atom Entangled States by Single-Photon Detection.
abstract: We propose a versatile and efficient method to generate a broad class of complex entangled states of many atoms via the detection of a single photon. For an atomic ensemble contained in a strongly coupled optical cavity illuminated by weak single- or multifrequency light, the atom-light interaction entangles the frequency spectrum of a transmitted photon with the collective spin of the atomic ensemble. Simple time-resolved detection of the transmitted photon then projects the atomic ensemble into a desired pure entangled state. This method can be implemented with existing technology, yields high success probability per trial, and can generate complex entangled states such as mesoscopic superposition states of coherent spin states with high fidelity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Wenlan
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Jiazhong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Yiheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Duan
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Boris
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Braverman
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Vladan
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Vuletić