Strong laser fields and their power to generate controllable high-photon-number coherent-state superpositions

TY - JOUR

T1 - Strong laser fields and their power to generate controllable high-photon-number coherent-state superpositions

AU - Rivera-Dean, Javier

AU - Lamprou, Theocharis

AU - Pisanty, Emilio

AU - Stammer, Philipp

AU - Ordóñez, Andrés F.

AU - Maxwell, Andrew S

AU - Ciappina, Marcelo Fabián

AU - Lewenstein, Maciej

AU - Tzallas, Paraskevas

N1 - Funding Information: We thank Jens Biegert, Ido Kaminer, and Pascal Salières for enlightening discussions. We also thank I. Liontos and E. Skantzakis from FORTH, and S. Karsch from Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics for his assistance in maintaining the performance of the Ti:Sa laser system. ICFO group acknowledges support from ERC AdG NOQIA, from Agencia Estatal de Investigación (the R&D project CEX2019-000910-S, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, Plan National FIDEUA PID2019-106901GB-I00, FPI, QUANTERA MAQS PCI2019-111828-2, Proyectos de “Retos Colaboración” RTC2019-007196-7) from Fundació Cellex, Fundació Mir-Puig, and from Generalitat de Catalunya through the CERCA program, AGAUR Grant No. 2017 SGR 134, QuantumCAT U16-011424, cofunded by ERDF Operational Program of Catalonia 2014-2020, EU Horizon 2020 FET-OPEN OPTOLogic (Grant No. 899794), and the National Science Centre, Poland (Symfonia Grant No. 2016/20/W/ST4/00314), European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 101029393 (STREDCH), “La Caixa” Junior Leaders fellowships (ID100010434), and EU Horizon 2020 under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 847648 (LCF/BQ/PI19/11690013, LCF/BQ/PI20/11760031, LCF/BQ/PR20/11770012, LCF/BQ/PR21/11840013). FORTH group acknowledges LASERLABEUROPE (H2020-EU.1.4.1.2 Grant ID 654148), FORTH Synergy Grant AgiIDA (Grant No. 00133), and the EU's H2020 framework programme for research and innovation under the NFFA-Europe-Pilot project (Grant No. 101007417). J.R-D. acknowledges support from the Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya, as well as the European Social Fund (L'FSE inverteix en el teu futur)–FEDER. E.P. acknowledges support from Royal Society University Research Fellowship URFR1211390. P.S. acknowledges funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 847517. A.S.M. acknowledges funding support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement SSFI No. 887153. M.F.C. acknowledges support from the Guangdong Province Science and Technology Major Project Future functional materials under extreme conditions—212019071820400001. P.T. group acknowledges LASERLABEUROPE V (H2020-EU.1.4.1.2 Grant No. 871124), FORTH Synergy Grant AgiIDA (Grant No. 00133), and the H2020 framework program for research and innovation under the NFFA-Europe-Pilot project (No. 101007417). ELI-ALPS is supported by the European Union and cofinanced by the European Regional Development Fund (GINOP Grant No. 2.3.6-15-2015-00001). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 American Physical Society

PY - 2022/3/23

Y1 - 2022/3/23

N2 - Recently, intensely driven laser-matter interactions have been used to connect the fields of strong laser field physics with quantum optics by generating nonclassical states of light. Here, we take a further key step and show the potential of strong laser fields for generating controllable high-photon-number coherent-state superpositions. This has been achieved by using two of the most prominent strong-laser induced processes: high-harmonic generation and above-threshold ionization. We show how the obtained coherent-state superpositions change from an optical Schrödinger “cat” state to a “kitten” state by changing the atomic density in the laser-atom interaction region, and we demonstrate the generation of a nine-photon shifted optical “cat” state, which, to our knowledge, is the highest photon number optical “cat” state experimentally reported. Our findings anticipate the development of new methods that naturally lead to the creation of high-photon-number controllable coherent-state superpositions, advancing investigations in quantum technology.

AB - Recently, intensely driven laser-matter interactions have been used to connect the fields of strong laser field physics with quantum optics by generating nonclassical states of light. Here, we take a further key step and show the potential of strong laser fields for generating controllable high-photon-number coherent-state superpositions. This has been achieved by using two of the most prominent strong-laser induced processes: high-harmonic generation and above-threshold ionization. We show how the obtained coherent-state superpositions change from an optical Schrödinger “cat” state to a “kitten” state by changing the atomic density in the laser-atom interaction region, and we demonstrate the generation of a nine-photon shifted optical “cat” state, which, to our knowledge, is the highest photon number optical “cat” state experimentally reported. Our findings anticipate the development of new methods that naturally lead to the creation of high-photon-number controllable coherent-state superpositions, advancing investigations in quantum technology.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85127889202&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevA.105.033714

DO - 10.1103/PhysRevA.105.033714

M3 - Article

SN - 1050-2947

VL - 105

JO - Physical Review A

JF - Physical Review A

IS - 3

M1 - 033714

ER -