Hybrid photonic loss resilient entanglement swapping

We propose a scheme of loss-resilient entanglement swapping between two distant parties in lossy optical fibre. In this scheme, Alice and Bob each begin with a pair of entangled nonclassical states; these ‘hybrid states’ of light are entangled discrete variable (Fock state) and continuous variable (CVs) (coherent state) pairs. The CV halves of each of these pairs are sent through lossy optical fibre to a middle location, where these states are then mixed (using a 50:50 beam-splitter) and measured. The detection scheme we use is to measure one of these modes via vacuum detection, and to measure the other mode using balanced homodyne detection. In this work we show that the |Φ+⟩=(|00⟩+|11⟩)/2–√ Bell state can theoretically be produced following this scheme with high fidelity and entanglement, even when allowing for a small amount of loss. It can be shown that there is an optimal amplitude value (α) of the coherent state, when allowing for such loss. We also investigate the realistic circumstance when the loss is not balanced in the propagating modes. We demonstrate that a small amount of loss mismatch does not destroy the overall entanglement, thus demonstrating the physical practicality of this protocol.