Alternating Squeezing and Photon Subtraction for Optical Cat-State Generation

@misc{conrad2026alternating,
  title = {{Alternating Squeezing and Photon Subtraction for Optical Cat-State Generation}},
  author = {Johanna Conrad and Fabian Steinlechner and René Sondenheimer},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.20728},
  eprint = {2610.20728},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.20728},
}

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Alternating Squeezing and Photon Subtraction for Optical Cat-State Generation
AU  - Johanna Conrad
AU  - Fabian Steinlechner
AU  - René Sondenheimer
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/14
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.20728
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.20728
AB  - Schrödinger cat states are important non-Gaussian resources for quantum information processing and quantum-enhanced metrology. Although photon subtraction from squeezed vacuum states has proven useful for generating such states in the optical domain, scaling to large amplitudes while maintaining high fidelity and heralding probability remains challenging. To address these obstacles, we analyze alternating squeezing and photon-number-subtraction operations. Rather than optimizing for a single heralding outcome, we formulate cat-state generation as a fidelity-constrained multibranch problem, jointly optimizing the total probability of all photon-number outcomes satisfying a prescribed fidelity threshold at one common experimental setting. Already for plain photon subtraction, this provides a more operational measure of the usable generation probability and can favor parameter configurations that differ from single-branch optima. Considering experimental constraints on available squeezing and photon-number-resolving capability, we demonstrate improvements in fidelity and success probability compared with plain photon subtraction, without necessarily increasing the required squeezing resources. Without restrictions on photon-number resolution, we find that the optimal architecture of the alternating scheme reduces to one of two single-subtraction endpoint configurations, depending on the available squeezing resources. When photon-number resolution is additionally limited, genuinely alternating branches can become advantageous. We derive analytical expressions for the conditional states, cat-state fidelities, and heralding probabilities, enabling efficient multibranch optimization and a systematic analysis of resource trade-offs, sensitivity to experimental parameter deviations, and heralding loss. Together, these results identify the architecture best suited to a given resource budget.
ER  -