title: Quantum entanglement of angular momentum states with quantum numbers up to 10,010.
abstract: Photons with a twisted phase front carry a quantized amount of orbital angular momentum (OAM) and have become important in various fields of optics, such as quantum and classical information science or optical tweezers. Because no upper limit on the OAM content per photon is known, they are also interesting systems to experimentally challenge quantum mechanical prediction for high quantum numbers. Here, we take advantage of a recently developed technique to imprint unprecedented high values of OAM, namely spiral phase mirrors, to generate photons with more than 10,000 quanta of OAM. Moreover, we demonstrate quantum entanglement between these large OAM quanta of one photon and the polarization of its partner photon. To our knowledge, this corresponds to entanglement with the largest quantum number that has been demonstrated in an experiment. The results may also open novel ways to couple single photons to massive objects, enhance angular resolution, and highlight OAM as a promising way to increase the information capacity of a single photon.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1090 Vienna, Austria; rfickler@uottawa.ca anton.zeilinger@univie.ac.at.|Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria.|Max Planck Centre for Extreme and Quantum Photonics, Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1N 6N5.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fickler
authors.affiliation: Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, Research School of Physics & Engineering, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Geoff
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.affiliation: Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, Research School of Physics & Engineering, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Ben
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Buchler
authors.affiliation: Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, Research School of Physics & Engineering, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Ping Koy
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Lam
authors.affiliation: Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1090 Vienna, Austria; rfickler@uottawa.ca anton.zeilinger@univie.ac.at.|Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Anton
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zeilinger
keywords: orbital angular momentum; photonic spatial modes; quantum entanglement; quantum foundations