L'objectif de ce travail de recherche est l'étude des posibilités offertes par une nouvelle approche de l'information quantique basée sur des variables quantiques continues. Lorsque ces variables continues sont portées par le champs éléctromagnétique, un grand nombre de protocoles d'information quantique peuvent être implémentés à l'aide de lasers et d'éléments d'optique linéaire standards. Cette simplicité expérimentale rend cette approche très intéressantes d'un point de vue pratique, en particulier pour le développement des futurs réseaux de communications quantiques. Le travail peut se diviser en deux parties complémentaires. Dans la première partie, plus fondamentale, la relation complexe qui existe entre l'intrication et la nonlocalité de la mécanique quantique est étudiée sur base des variables optiques continues. Ces deux ressources étant essentielles pour l'information quantique, il est nécessaire de bien les comprendre et de bien les caractériser. Dans la seconde partie, orientée vers des applications concrètes, le problème de la correction d'erreur à variables continues est étudié. Pouvoir transmettre et manipuler l'information sans erreurs est nécessaire au bon développemnent de l'information quantique, mais, en pratique, les erreurs sont inévitables. Les codes correcteurs d'erreurs permettent de détecter et corriger ces erreures de manière efficace.

Orientadores: Kyoko Furuya e Marcos César de Oliveira / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Fisica Gleb Wataghin / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-14T10:42:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Missori_RicardoJose_D.pdf: 12608973 bytes, checksum: 25d2abc254d2688f7a4225e0cd2bc6aa (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: Nesta tese, apresentamos dois resultados para a geração de emaranhamento, ambos envolvendo a interação entre átomos e radiação. Na primeira parte, propomos um esquema para geração de estados emaranhados envolvendo os estados eletrônicos de dois íons separados espacialmente, cada qual aprisionado em uma cavidade. Um átomo propagante, que cruza essas cavidades, é responsável pela geração de estados emaranhados do tipo Bell entre os dois íons. Mostramos que para tempos específicos de interação, a geração dos estados emaranhados é não-probabilística. Propostas de átomo e íons, candidatos a implementação do esquema experimental, também são apresentadas. Já segunda parte deste trabalho, investigamos um modelo para a interação de dois campos quânticos ortogonalmente polarizados com uma nuvem de átomos de quatro níveis do tipo-X. Consideramos, para nosso esquema, situações físicas onde os átomos funcionam efetivamente como sendo de dois níveis. Assim, dentro de uma aproximação linearizada do campo, nosso Hamiltoniano efetivo bilinear, que representa a interação átomos-campo, passa a depender da diferença de população entre os dois níveis do ensemble de átomos. Após uma medida condicionada nos átomos, mostramos que os dois modos do campo ficam em estados emaranhados não-Gaussianos, diferentemente do que foi considerado em alguns trabalhos recentes na literatura que abordamos. Como a compressão abaixo do limite de ruído na polarização linear pode ser usada como indicadora de emaranhamento na polarização circular, nós podemos usar a variância das quadraturas, combinada com o critério de inseparabilidade para variáveis contínuas, para complementar o nosso estudo sobre o esquema experimental. / Abstract: In this thesis, we present two results of entanglement generation, both involving atom-radiation interaction. In the first part, we consider a scheme for generation of entangled states involving electronic states of two distant ions, each one placed in a cavity. A flying atom, that crosses these cavities, is responsible for the generation of entangled states of the Bell-type between the two ions. We show that for specific times of interaction, the entangled states are generated and in a non-probabilistic way. We also present a realistic proposal of candidates for atoms and ions for an experimental implementation of this scheme. In the second part of this work, we investigate a model for the interaction of two orthogonally polarized quantum fields with a cloud of X-like four-level atoms. We consider, in our scheme, a physical situation where the atoms act effectively like two-level atoms. Thus, in a linearized approximation for the field, we derive a bilinear effective Hamiltonian representing the atom-field interaction, which depends on the difference of population between the ensemble of two-level atoms. After a conditional measurement in the atomic system, we show that the two field modes ends up in a non-Gaussian entangled states, differently from what has been considered in some recent works in the literature. Since the squeezing below the noise limit in the linear polarization can be used as an indicator of entanglement in the circular polarization, we can use the variances in the quadratures, combined with the inseparability criterion for continuum variables, to complement our study of the experimental scheme. / Doutorado / Física / Doutor em Ciências

The processing of information based on the generation of common quantum optical states (e.g. coherent states) and the measurement of the quadrature components of the light field (e.g. homodyne detection) is often referred to as continuous-variable quantum information processing. It is a very fertile field of investigation, at a crossroads between quantum optics and information theory, with notable successes such as unconditional continuous-variable quantum teleportation or Gaussian quantum key distribution. In quantum optics, the states of the light field are conveniently characterized using a phase-space representation (e.g. Wigner function), and the common optical components effect simple affine transformations in phase space (e.g. rotations). In quantum information theory, one often needs to determine entropic characteristics of quantum states and operations, since the von Neuman entropy is the quantity at the heart of entanglement measures or channel capacities. Computing entropies of quantum optical states requires instead turning to a state-space representation of the light field, which formally is the Fock space of a bosonic mode.<p>This interplay between phase-space and state-space representations does not represent a particular problem as long as Gaussian states (e.g. coherent, squeezed, or thermal states) and Gaussian operations (e.g. beam splitters or squeezers) are concerned. Indeed, Gaussian states are fully characterized by the first- and second-order moments of mode operators, while Gaussian operations are defined via their actions on these moments. The so-called symplectic formalism can be used to treat all Gaussian transformations on Gaussian states, including mixed states of an arbitrary number of modes, and the entropies of Gaussian states are directly linked to their symplectic eigenvalues.<p>This thesis is concerned with the Gaussian transformations applied onto arbitrary states of light, in which case the symplectic formalism is unapplicable and this phase-to-state space interplay becomes highly non trivial. A first motivation to consider arbitrary (non-Gaussian) states of light results from various Gaussian no-go theorems in continuous-variable quantum information theory. For instance, universal quantum computing, quantum entanglement concentration, or quantum error correction are known to be impossible when restricted to the Gaussian realm. A second motivation comes from the fact that several fundamental quantities, such as the entanglement of formation of a Gaussian state or the communication capacity of a Gaussian channel, rely on an optimization over all states, including non-Gaussian states even though the considered state or channel is Gaussian. This thesis is therefore devoted to developing new tools in order to compute state-space properties (e.g. entropies) of transformations defined in phase-space or conversely to computing phase-space properties (e.g. mean-field amplitudes) of transformations defined in state space. Remarkably, even some basic questions such as the entanglement generation of optical squeezers or beam splitters were unsolved, which gave us a nice work-bench to investigate this interplay. <p>In the first part of this thesis (Chapter 3), we considered a recently discovered Gaussian probabilistic transformation called the noiseless optical amplifier. More specifically, this is a process enabling the amplification of a quantum state without introducing noise. As it has long been known, when amplifing a quantum signal, the arising of noise is inevitable due to the unitary evolution that governs quantum mechanics. It was recently realized, however, that one can drop the unitarity of the amplification procedure and trade it for a noiseless, albeit probabilistic (heralded) transformation. The fact that the transformation is probabilistic is mathematically reflected in the fact that it is non trace-preserving. This quantum device has gained much interest during the last years because it can be used to compensate losses in a quantum channel, for entanglement distillation, probabilistic quantum cloning, or quantum error correction. Several experimental demonstrations of this device have already been carried out. Our contribution to this topic has been to derive the action of this device on squeezed states and to prove that it acts quite surprisingly as a universal (phase-insensitive) optical squeezer, conserving the signal-to-noise ratio just as a phase-sensitive optical amplifier but for all quadratures at the same time. This also brought into surface a paradoxical effect, namely that such a device could seemingly lead to instantaneous signaling by circumventing the quantum no-cloning theorem. This paradox was discussed and resolved in our work.<p>In a second step, the action of the noiseless optical amplifier and it dual operation (i.e. heralded noiseless attenuator) on non-Gaussian states has been examined. We have observed that the mean-field amplitude may decrease in the process of noiseless amplification (or may increase in the process of noiseless attenuation), a very counterintuitive effect that Gaussian states cannot exhibit. This work illustrates the above-mentioned phase-to-state space interplay since these devices are defined as simple filtering operations in state space but inferring their action on phase-space quantities such as the mean-field amplitude is not straightforward. It also illustrates the difficulty of dealing with non-Gaussian states in Gaussian transformations (these noiseless devices are probabilistic but Gaussian). Furthermore, we have exhibited an experimental proposal that could be used to test this counterintuitive feature. The proposed set-up is feasible with current technology and robust against usual inefficiencies that occur in optical experiment. <p>Noiseless amplification and attenuation represent new important tools, which may offer interesting perspectives in quantum optical communications. Therefore, further understanding of these transformations is both of fundamental interest and important for the development and analysis of protocols exploiting these tools. Our work provides a better understanding of these transformations and reveals that the intuition based on ordinary (deterministic phase-insensitive) amplifiers and losses is not always applicable to the noiseless amplifiers and attenuators.<p>In the last part of this thesis, we have considered the entropic characterization of some of the most fundamental Gaussian transformations in quantum optics, namely a beam splitter and two-mode squeezer. A beam splitter effects a simple rotation in phase space, while a two-mode squeezer produces a Bogoliubov transformation. Thus, there is a well-known phase-space characterization in terms of symplectic transformations, but the difficulty originates from that one must return to state space in order to access quantum entropies or entanglement. This is again a hard problem, linked to the above-mentioned interplay in the reverse direction this time. As soon as non-Gaussian states are concerned, there is no way of calculating the entropy produced by such Gaussian transformations. We have investigated two novel tools in order to treat non-Gaussian states under Gaussian transformations, namely majorization theory and the replica method.<p>In Chapter 4, we have started by analyzing the entanglement generated by a beam splitter that is fed with a photon-number state, and have shown that the entanglement monotones can be neatly combined with majorization theory in this context. Majorization theory provides a preorder relation between bipartite pure quantum states, and gives a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a deterministic LOCC (local operations and classical communication) transformation from one state to another. We have shown that the state resulting from n photons impinging on a beam splitter majorizes the corresponding state with any larger photon number n’ > n, implying that the entanglement monotonically grows with n, as expected. In contrast, we have proven that such a seemingly simple optical component may have a rather surprising behavior when it comes to majorization theory: it does not necessarily lead to states that obey a majorization relation if one varies the transmittance (moving towards a balanced beam splitter). These results are significant for entanglement manipulation, giving rise in particular to a catalysis effect.<p>Moving forward, in Chapter 5, we took the step of introducing the replica method in quantum optics, with the goal of achieving an entropic characterization of general Gaussian operations on a bosonic quantum field. The replica method, a tool borrowed from statistical physics, can also be used to calculate the von Neumann entropy and is the last line of defense when the usual definition is not practical, which is often the case in quantum optics since the definition involves calculating the eigenvalues of some (infinite-dimensional) density matrix. With this method, the entropy produced by a two-mode squeezer (or parametric optical amplifier) with non-trivial input states has been studied. As an application, we have determined the entropy generated by amplifying a binary superposition of the vacuum and an arbitrary Fock state, which yields a surprisingly simple, yet unknown analytical expression. Finally, we have turned to the replica method in the context of field theory, and have examined the behavior of a bosonic field with finite temperature when the temperature decreases. To this end, information theoretical tools were used, such as the geometric entropy and the mutual information, and interesting connection between phase transitions and informational quantities were found. More specifically, dividing the field in two spatial regions and calculating the mutual information between these two regions, it turns out that the mutual information is non-differentiable exactly at the critical temperature for the formation of the Bose-Einstein condensate.<p>The replica method provides a new angle of attack to access quantum entropies in fundamental Gaussian bosonic transformations, that is quadratic interactions between bosonic mode operators such as Bogoliubov transformations. The difficulty of accessing entropies produced when transforming non-Gaussian states is also linked to several currently unproven entropic conjectures on Gaussian optimality in the context of bosonic channels. Notably, determining the capacity of a multiple-access or broadcast Gaussian bosonic channel is pending on being able to access entropies. We anticipate that the replica method may become an invaluable tool in order to reach a complete entropic characterization of Gaussian bosonic transformations, or perhaps even solve some of these pending conjectures on Gaussian bosonic channels.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis probes the usefulness of non-classical correlations within imperfect continuous variable decoherent quantum systems. Although a consistent function and practical usefulness of these correlations is largely unknown, it is important to examine their characteristics in more realistic dissipative systems, to gain further insight into any possible advantageous behaviour. A bipartite separable discordant state under the action of controlled loss on one subsystem was considered. Under these conditions the Gaussian quantum discord not only proved to be robust against loss, but actually improves as loss is intensified. Harmful imperfections which reduce the achievable level of discord can be counteracted by this controlled loss. Through a purification an explanation of this effect was sought by considering system-environment correlations, and found that a flow of system-environment correlations increases the quantumness of the state. Entanglement recovery possibilities were discussed and revealed the importance of hidden quantum correlations along bi-partitions across the discordant state and a classically prepared &quot;demodulating&quot; system, acting in such a way as to partially cancel the entanglement preventing noise. Entanglement distribution by separable states was studied by a similar framework, in an attempt to explain the emergence of quantum entanglement by a specific flow of correlations in the globally pure system. Discord appears to play a less fundamental role compared to the qubit version of the protocol. The strengthening of non-classical correlations can be attributed to a flow of classical and quantum correlations. This work proves that discord can be created in unique ways and, in select circumstances, can act to counteract harmful imperfections in the apparatus. Due to this advantageous behaviour discord indeed may ultimately aid in more applicable &quot;real world&quot; applications, which are by definition decoherent.

Le phénomène de blocage de photon est observé lorsqu'un système à deux niveaux est fortement couplé à une cavité, limitant ainsi le nombre d'occupation des photons dans le mode de la cavité à zéro ou un. Ce phénomène est analogue au blocage de Coulomb en physique mésoscopique et a été observé en optique en couplant un atome unique ou une boîte quantique à une cavité. L'efficacité du blocage, mesurée par la fonction d'autocorrélation du deuxième ordre g2(0) augmente d'autant plus que la non-linéarité du système est grande devant la largeur de la cavité. Ce travail de thèse présente l'étude théorique et expérimentale d'un nouveau phénomène de blocage appelé "phénomène de blocage anormal de photon", dans le régime micro-onde. Ce phénomène apparaît dans un système photonique comprenant deux modes couplés, où au moins un des modes est non-linéaire. Par contraste avec le blocage de photon standard, le blocage anormal permet d'obtenir un blocage parfait (g2(0)=0) pour une non-linéarité arbitrairement faible. Nous présentons les propriétés théoriques du blocage anormal, et notamment sa formulation en termes d'états gaussiens. Afin de mettre en évidence ce phénomène, nous avons réalisé deux résonateurs supraconducteurs couplés, dont l'un est rendu non-linéaire et ajustable en fréquence par l'ajout d'un SQUID. Nous montrons les techniques de fabrication employées et la caractérisation des paramètres de notre échantillon. Enfin, nous présentons les techniques mises en œuvre pour mesurer g2(t). Cette mesure nous a permis de mettre en évidence le phénomène de blocage anormal et d'en étudier les propriétés en fonction des différents paramètres expérimentaux. / Photon blockade is observed when a two level system is strongly coupled to a cavity thus limiting the occupation number of the cavity mode to zero or one photon. This phenomenon is analogous to the Coulomb blockade effect in mesoscopic physics and has been observed in optics by coupling a single atom or a quantum dot to a cavity. The efficiency of the blockade, as measured by the second order auto-correlation function g2(0) increases with the non-linearity of the system in comparison to the cavity width. In this thesis, we present a theoretical and experimental study of a new blockade mechanism, called "anomalous photon blockade effect", in the microwave domain. This effect appears in photonics systems consisting of two coupled modes, where at least one of the mode is non-linear. In contrast to the standard blockade effect, perfect blockade (g2(0)=0) can be achieved with an arbitrary weak non-linearity strength. In the first part, we present a theoretical study of the anomalous blockade, and we use, in particular, a description in terms of gaussian states. To experimentally observe this effect, we have micro-fabricated two coupled superconductive resonators, where one of the resonator is frequency tunable and non-linear thanks to a SQUID. In the second part, we present the fabrication process and the characterization of our sample. Finally, we present the different techniques that we use to measure the auto-correlation function g2(τ). This measurement allowed us to demonstrate the anomalous blockade effect and to study its various properties as a function of the experimental parameters.

L'objectif de cette thèse concerne la manipulation à l'échelle quantique du champ électromagnétique dans le cadre de l'information quantique à variables continues. Pour ce faire nous mélangeons les outils de l'optique quantique à variables discrètes, où la lumière est décrite en termes de photons, avec l'approche continue, traitant des quadratures du champ. Cette technique permet de produire des états non-classiques décrits par des fonctions de Wigner prenant des valeurs négatives. Nous avons pu générer des états intriqués à partir d'impulsions lumineuses initialement indépendantes et pouvant être séparées par une longue distance, l'intrication s'effectuant au travers d'un canal acceptant de fortes pertes. Nous avons ensuite démontré et caractérisé expérimentalement un protocole non-déterministe permettant d'amplifier de faibles signaux sans en amplifier le bruit quantique, augmentant ainsi le rapport signal sur bruit. Puis nous avons mis en œuvre et comparé expérimentalement différentes mesures de non-gaussianité d'un état quantique : ce caractère propre à une description continue de la lumière est d'un intérêt capital pour l'information quantique. Enfin nous avons développé et testé deux améliorations pour notre dispositif. La première est un amplificateur femtoseconde pour notre laser impulsionnel, qui permettra d'obtenir de meilleurs états de départ pour nos expériences. La deuxième est un appareil capable de discriminer le nombre de photon, donnant ainsi des résultats plus précis que ceux des détecteurs dont nous disposons actuellement qui sont uniquement capable de détecter la présence de photons. / This thesis aims at handling the electromagnetic field at a quantum scale in the area of quantum information processing. For this purpose we mixed tools of discrete variable quantum optics, where light is described in terms of photons, with the continuous approach, which uses the quadratures of the field. This technique enables the production of non-classical states which should be described by Wigner functions that takes negative values. We have generated entangled states from ultra-short light pulses initially independent and which can be separated by a long distance: the entanglement is indeed performed through a low-transmission channel. Then we have experimentally demonstrated and characterized a protocol that non-deterministically amplifies low signals without amplifying the quantum noise, increasing the signal to noise ratio. Furthermore we experimentally implement and compared several measures of the non-gaussianity of a quantum state: this characteristic, which belongs to continuous description of light, is of essential interest for quantum information processing. Finally we develop and test two improvements for our setup. The first one is a femtosecond amplifier for our pulsed laser. It will enable us to obtain better primitive states for our experiments. The second one is an apparatus that can discriminate the number of photon in a pulse, giving more accurate results than the detectors we used up to now that are only able to detect the presence of photons.

Cette thèse s’inscrit dans le cadre de l’information quantique avec des variables continues, en utilisant des états quantiques du champ électromagnétique. En combinant les outils propres aux variables discrètes, o`u la lumière est décrite en termes de photons, avec les outils des variables continues, où la lumière est décrite en termes de quadratures, nous pouvons étudier théoriquement et produire expérimentalement des états non-classiques, ainsi que des protocoles élémentaires d’information quantique. Ainsi, nous avons produit expérimentalement un état «chat de Schrödinger», superposition quantique de deux états lumineux quasi-classiques, sur lequel nous avons appliqué une porte quantique introduisant une phase dans la superposition. Nous avons ensuite analysé la qualité de cette porte en utilisant un modèle simple de notre expérience. Nous nous sommes ensuite intéressés aux corrélations quantiques, mesurées par la discorde quantique, pour une classe d’états particulièrement importants en information quantique. Nous avons quantifié la précision de nos mesures en les comparant aux bornes de Cramér-Rao classique et quantique. Enfin, nous avons étudié théoriquement l’utilisation d’un amplificateur quantique non-déterministe en cryptographie quantique. Cet amplificateur possède la propriété de pouvoir amplifier des états quantiques sans en amplifier le bruit quantique associé. Ainsi, nous avons montré qu’il permet une amélioration de la distance maximale de transmission d’une clé secrète, ainsi qu’une amélioration de la résistance au bruit introduit par le canal quantique. / This thesis is concerned with different aspects of quantum information with the continuous variables of quantum states of light. Through the combination of the continuous and discrete descriptions, where the light is either described in terms of quadratures or photons, non-classical quantum states and elementary quantum information protocols have been theoretically studied and experimentally implemented. We have experimentally implemented a quantum superposition of two quasi-classical states of light, a “Schrödinger cat state”, which was used to feed a quantum phase gate. We have analysed the quality of this implementation by using a simple model of the experiment. We have then studied quantum correlations, as captured by the quantum discord, for an important class of states in quantum information. We have compared the precision of our measurements by using the classical and quantum Cramér-Rao bounds. Finally, we have theoretically studied the use of a non-deterministic quantum amplifier in quantum cryptography. This amplifier has the property to amplify quantum states without amplifying their quantum noise. Using this property, we have shown that it is possible to increase the maximum distance of transmission of a secret key, as well as the tolerance to the noise added by the quantum channel.

Produire et faire interagir entre eux des photons optiques de façon contrôlée sont deux conditions nécessaires au développement de communications quantiques à longue distance, et plus généralement au traitement quantique d’information codée sur des photons. Cette thèse présente une étude expérimentale de solutions possibles a ces deux problèmes, en utilisant la conversion des photons en excitations collectives (polaritons) dans un nuage d’atomes froids, placé dans le mode d’une cavité optique de faible finesse (~100). Dans un premier temps, des polaritons entre états atomiques fondamentaux sont utilisés pour « mettre en mémoire » une excitation unique dans le nuage. Celle-ci est ensuite convertie efficacement en un photon unique, dont le champ est analysé par tomographie homodyne. La fonction de Wigner de l’état à un photon est reconstruite a partir des données expérimentales, et présente des valeurs négatives, démontrant que les degrés de liberté de ce photon (mode spatio-temporel et état quantique) sont complètement contrôlés. Dans un second temps, les photons sont couplés à des polaritons impliquant des états de Rydberg. Les fortes interactions dipolaires entre ces derniers se traduisent par des non-linéarités optiques dispersives très importantes, qui sont caractérisées dans un régime d’excitation classique. Ces non-linéarités peuvent être amplifiées jusqu’à ce qu’un seul photon suffise à modifier totalement la réponse du système, permettant en principe de générer des interactions effectives entre photons. / Controllably producing optical photons and making them interact are two key requirements for the development of long-distance quantum communications, and more generally for photonic quantum information processing. This thesis presents experimental studies on possible solutions to these two problems, using the conversion of the photons into collective excitations (polaritons) in a cold atomic cloud, inside the mode of a low-finesse optical cavity (~100). Firstly, ground-state polaritons are used to store a single excitation in the cloud memory. This polariton is then efficiently converted into a single photon, whose field is characterized via homodyne tomography. The single photon state’s Wigner function is reconstructed from the experimental data and exhibits negative values, demonstrating that the photon’s degrees of freedom (spatio-temporal mode and quantum state) are well controlled. Secondly, photons can be coupled to polaritons involving Rydberg states. The strong dipolar interactions between these give rise to very strong optical dispersive nonlinearities, that are characterized in a classical excitation regime. These nonlinearities can be amplified until a single photon is enough to modify the entire system’s response, allowing in principle for the generation of effective photon-photon interactions.

Cette thèse porte sur la génération d'états quantiques mésoscopiques arbitraires de la lumière par l'utilisation itérée d'un protocole élémentaire simple, basé sur un procédé d'adjonction cohérente de photons. Ce protocole tire parti des deux descriptions ondulatoires et corpusculaires complémentaires de la lumière, en impliquant des états davantage propices à une description discrète (les photons, corpuscules élémentaires de la lumière) avec des mesures continues sur le champ électromagnétique (les mesures de quadratures). Nous démontrons la validité du protocole expérimentalement en montrant que celui-ci permet la génération d'états chats de Schrödinger optiques (superposition cohérente d'états quasi-classiques) comprimés en quadrature. Ces états présentent un grand intérêt étant donné qu'ils peuvent constituer la brique élémentaire du calcul quantique à états cohérents, le "qubit" (ou bit quantique). Nous étudions également la mise en oeuvre théorique du protocole dans la production d'états plus complexes : les états "Peignes en quadrature" dont la fonction d'onde sur la quadrature x est constituée d'une succession de fins pics gaussiens modulés par une large enveloppe gaussienne. Outre l'intérêt que ceux-ci présentent dans la mise en oeuvre de codes correcteurs d'erreurs quantiques, nous montrons qu'ils permettent de réaliser des violations des inégalités de Bell par mesures homodynes seulement, ouvrant la voie à des tests sans échappatoires / In this thesis, we propose a new scheme for the generation of mesoscopic optical quantum states of light, by the iterated use of an elementary protocol, based on a coherent adjunction of photons. This protocol takes advantage of the two complementary wave and particle descriptions of light, by involving intrinsically discrete states (photons, elementary particles of light) and continuous measurements on the electromagnetic field (quadrature measurements). We experimentally prove the validity of the protocol by showing that it enables the generation of squeezed optical Schrödinger cat states (coherent superposition of quasi-classical states). These states are of great interest as they can be used as the elementary piece in the coherent state quantum calculation, the "qubit" (or quantum bit). We also study the theoretical implementation of the protocol for the production of more complex states : the "quadrature Comb states", whose wavefunction along the quadrature x consists in a succession of thin gaussian peaks modulated by a larger gaussian envelope. Amongst other applications like quantum error correcting codes, we show that they allow for a violation of Bell's inequalities with homodyne measurements only, opening the path towards loophole-free violations

L'objectif de ce travail de recherche est l'étude des posibilités offertes par une nouvelle approche de l'information quantique basée sur des variables quantiques continues. Lorsque ces variables continues sont portées par le champs éléctromagnétique, un grand nombre de protocoles d'information quantique peuvent être implémentés à l'aide de lasers et d'éléments d'optique linéaire standards. Cette simplicité expérimentale rend cette approche très intéressantes d'un point de vue pratique, en particulier pour le développement des futurs réseaux de communications quantiques.<p><p>Le travail peut se diviser en deux parties complémentaires. Dans la première partie, plus fondamentale, la relation complexe qui existe entre l'intrication et la nonlocalité de la mécanique quantique est étudiée sur base des variables optiques continues. Ces deux ressources étant essentielles pour l'information quantique, il est nécessaire de bien les comprendre et de bien les caractériser. Dans la seconde partie, orientée vers des applications concrètes, le problème de la correction d'erreur à variables continues est étudié. Pouvoir transmettre et manipuler l'information sans erreurs est nécessaire au bon développemnent de l'information quantique, mais, en pratique, les erreurs sont inévitables. Les codes correcteurs d'erreurs permettent de détecter et corriger ces erreures de manière efficace.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished