We suggest a scheme to generate a macroscopic superposition state (Schrodinger cat state) of a free-propagating optical field using a beam splitter, homodyne measurement and a very small Kerr nonlinear effect. Our scheme makes it possible to considerably reduce the required nonlinear effect to generate an optical cat state using simple and efficient optical elements.
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0405041,
title = {Generation of macroscopic superposition states with small nonlinearity},
author = {H. Jeong and M. S. Kim and T. C. Ralph and B. S. Ham},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0405041},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Significantly improved version, to be published in PRA as a Rapid Communication