Asymmetric EPR entanglement in continuous variable systems

Abstract

Continuous variable entanglement can be produced in nonlinear systems or via the interference of squeezed states. In many optical systems such as parametric down conversion, the production of two perfectly symmetric subsystems is usually assumed when demonstrating the existence of entanglement. This symmetry simplifies the description of entanglement. However, asymmetry in entanglement may arise naturally in a real experiment, or be intentionally introduced in a given quantum information protocol. These asymmetries can emerge from having the output beams experience different losses and environmental contamination, or from the availability of non-identical input quantum states in quantum communication protocols. In this paper, we present a visualization of entanglement using quadrature amplitude plots of the twin beams. We quantitatively discuss the strength of asymmetric entanglement using EPR and inseparability criteria and theoretically show that the optimal beamsplitter ratio for entanglement is dependent on the asymmetries and may not be 50 : 50. To support this theory, we present experimental results showing one particular asymmetric entanglement where a 78 : 22 beamsplitter is optimal for observing entanglement.