Sufficient condition for a quantum state to be genuinely quantum non-Gaussian
Lucas Happ, Maxim A. Efremov, Hyunchul Nha, Wolfgang P. Schleich · New Journal of Physics · 2018
We show that the expectation value of the operator defined by the position and momentum operators and with a positive parameter c can serve as a tool to identify quantum non-Gaussian states, that is states that cannot be represented as a mixture of Gaussian states. Our condition can be readily tested employing a highly efficient homodyne detection which unlike quantum-state tomography requires the measurements of only two orthogonal quadratures. We demonstrate that our method is even able to detect quantum non-Gaussian states with positive–definite Wigner functions. This situation cannot be addressed in terms of the negativity of the phase-space distribution. Moreover, we demonstrate that our condition can characterize quantum non-Gaussianity for the class of superposition states consisting of a vacuum and integer multiples of four photons under more than 50 % signal attenuation.