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# Hierarchy of Chaotic Maps with an Invariant Measure

## 1 INTRODUCTION

In recent years chaos or more properly dynamical systems have become an important area of research activity. One of the landmarks in it was introduction of the concept of Sinai-Ruelle-Bowen (SRB) measure or natural invariant measure. This is roughly speaking a measure that is supported on an attractor and that describe the statistics of the long time behavior of the orbits for almost every initial condition in the corresponding basin of attractor . This measure can be obtained by computing the fixed density of the so called Frobenius-Perron operator which can be viewed as a differential-integral operator, hence, exact determination of invariant measure of dynamical systems is rather a nontrivial task, such that invariant measure of few dynamical systems such as one-parameter family one-dimensional piecewise linear maps  including Baker and tent maps or unimodal maps such as logistic map for certain values of its parameter, can be derived analytically. In most of cases only numerical algorithms, as an example Ulam’s method are used for computation of fixed densities of Frobenius-Perron operator. Here in this article we give a hierarchy of one-parameter family $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(1,2)}(\alpha ,x)`$ of maps of interval $`[0,1]`$ with an invariant measure. These maps are defined as ratio of polynomials of degree N, where we have derived analytically their invariant measure for an arbitrary values of the parameter $`\alpha `$ and every integer values of $`N`$. Using this measure, we have calculated analytically, Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy or equivalently positive Lyapunov characteristic exponent of these maps, where the numerical simulation of up to degree N=10 approve the analytic calculation. Also it is shown that these maps have another interesting property, that is, for even values of $`N`$ the $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(1)}(\alpha ,x)`$($`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(2)}(\alpha ,x)`$) maps have only a fixed point attractor $`x=1`$($`x=0`$) provided that their parameter belongs to interval $`(N,\mathrm{})`$($`(0,\frac{1}{N})`$) while, at $`\alpha N`$ $`(\alpha \frac{1}{N})`$ they bifurcate to chaotic regime without having any period doubling or period-n-tupling scenario and remain chaotic for all $`\alpha (0,N)`$ ($`\alpha (\frac{1}{N},\mathrm{})`$) but for odd values of N, these maps have only fixed point attractor $`x=0`$ for $`\alpha (\frac{1}{N},N)`$, again they bifurcate to chaotic regime at $`\alpha \frac{1}{N}`$, and remain chaotic for $`\alpha (0,\frac{1}{N})`$, finally they bifurcate at $`\alpha =N`$ to have $`x=1`$ as fixed point attractor for all $`\alpha (\frac{1}{N},\mathrm{})`$(see Figures 1,2 and 3). The paper is organized as follows: In section II we introduce hierarchy of family of one-parameter maps, In Section III we show that the proposed anzats for the invariant measure of their maps are eigenfuntion of Ferobenios-Perron operator with largest eigenvalue $`1`$, for any finite $`N`$. Then in section IV using this measure we calculate kolmogorov-Sinai entropy of these maps for an arbitrary value of parameter $`\alpha `$ and every integer values of $`N`$. In section V we compare analytic calculation with the numerical simulation. Paper ends with a brief conclusion.

## 2 ONE-PARAMETER FAMILIES OF CHAOTIC MAPS

The one-parameter families of chaotic maps of the interval $`[0,1]`$ with an invariant measure are defined as ratio of polynomials of degree $`N`$ :

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x,\alpha )=\frac{\alpha ^2\left(1+(1)^N{}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(N,N,\frac{1}{2},x)\right)}{(\alpha ^2+1)+(\alpha ^21)(1)^N{}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(N,N,\frac{1}{2},x)}$$

$$=\frac{\alpha ^2(T_N(\sqrt{x}))^2}{1+(\alpha ^21)(T_N(\sqrt{x})^2)},$$
(2-1)
$$\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha )=\frac{\alpha ^2\left(1(1)^N{}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(N,N,\frac{1}{2},(1x))\right)}{(\beta ^2+1)(\alpha ^21)(1)^N{}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(N,N,\frac{1}{2},(1x))}$$

$$=\frac{\alpha ^2(U_N(\sqrt{(1x)}))^2}{1+(\alpha ^21)(U_N(\sqrt{(1x)})^2)},$$
(2-2)
where $`N`$ is an integer greater than one. Also

$${}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(N,N,\frac{1}{2},x)=(1)^N\mathrm{cos}(2N\mathrm{arccos}\sqrt{x})=(1)^NT_{2N}(\sqrt{x})$$

is hypergeometric polynomials of degree $`N`$ and $`T_N(x)(U_n(x))`$ are Chebyshev polynomials of type I (type II), respectively. Obviously these map the unit interval $`[0,1]`$ into itself and are related to each other through the following relation :

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x,\alpha )=g(\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)},g(x),\frac{1}{\alpha })=g\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(\frac{1}{\alpha })g(x)\text{for even N,}$$
(2-3)
and

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x,\alpha )=\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha )\text{for odd N,}$$
(2-4)
where $`g(x)`$ is the invertible map $`g(x)=g^1(x)=1x`$ and the symbol $``$ means composition of functions. From now on, depending on situation, we will consider one of these maps, since, we can get all required information concerning the other map via using the relations $`(23)`$ and $`(24)`$ between these two maps: $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(\alpha ,x)`$ is (N-1)-model map, that is it has $`(N1)`$ critical points in unit interval $`[0,1]`$,(see Figure 4) since its derivative is proportional to derivative of hypergeometric polynomial $`{}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(N,N,\frac{1}{2},x)`$ which is itself a hypergeometric polynomial of degree $`(N1)`$, hence it has $`(N1)`$ real roots in unit interval $`[0,1]`$. Defining Shwarzian derivative $`S\mathrm{\Phi }_N(x)`$ as:

$$S\left(\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x)\right)=\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)\prime \prime \prime }(x)}{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x)}\frac{3}{2}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)\prime \prime }(x)}{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x)}\right)^2=\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)\prime \prime }(x)}{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x)}\right)^{}\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)\prime \prime }(x)}{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x)}\right)^2,$$

with a prime denoting a single differentiation with respect to variable $`x`$, one can show that:

$$S\left(\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x)\right)=S\left({}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(N,N,\frac{1}{2},x)\right)0,$$

since $`\frac{d}{dx}(_2F_1(N,N,\frac{1}{2},x))`$ can be written as:

$$\frac{d}{dx}\left({}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(N,N,\frac{1}{2},x)\right)=A\underset{i=1}{\overset{N1}{}}(xx_i),$$

with $`0x_1<x_2<x_3<\mathrm{}.<x_{N1}1`$ then we have:

$$S\left({}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(N,N,\frac{1}{2},x)\right)=\frac{1}{2}\underset{J=1}{\overset{N1}{}}\frac{1}{(xa_j)^2}\left(\underset{J=1}{\overset{N1}{}}\frac{1}{(xx_j)}\right)^2<0.$$

Therefore the maps $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x)`$ have at most $`N+1`$ attracting periodic orbits. As we will show at the end of this section, these maps have only a single period one stable fixed points.
Denoting n-composition of functions $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(1,2)}(x_1,\alpha )`$ by $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}`$, it is straightforward to show that the derivative of $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}`$ at its possible n periodic points of an n-cycle: $`x_2=\mathrm{\Phi }^{(1,2)}(x_1,\alpha ),x_3=\mathrm{\Phi }^{(1,2)}(x_2,\alpha ),\mathrm{},x_1=\mathrm{\Phi }^{(1,2)}(x_n,\alpha )`$ is

$$\frac{d}{dx}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}=\frac{d}{dx}\stackrel{n}{\stackrel{}{\left(\mathrm{\Phi }^{(1,2)}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(1,2)}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )\right)}}=\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{N}{\alpha }(\alpha ^2+(1\alpha ^2)x_k),$$
(2-5)
since for $`x_k[0,1]`$ we have:

$$min(\alpha ^2+(1\alpha ^2x_k))=min(1,\alpha ^2),$$

therefore,

$$min\frac{d}{dx}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}=\left(\frac{N}{\alpha }min(1,\alpha ^2)\right)^n.$$

Hence the above expression is definitely greater than one for $`\frac{1}{N}<\alpha <N`$, that is, both maps do not have any kind of n-cycle or periodic orbits for $`\frac{1}{N}<\alpha <N`$, actually they are ergodic for this interval of parameter. From (2-13) it follows that $`\frac{d}{dx}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}`$ at n periodic points of the n-cycle belonging to interval , varies between $`(N\alpha )^n`$ and $`(\frac{N}{\alpha })^n`$ for $`\alpha <\frac{1}{N}`$ and between $`(\frac{N}{\alpha })^n`$ and $`(N\alpha )^n`$ for $`\alpha >N`$, respectively.
From the definition of these maps, we see that for odd N, both $`x=0`$ and $`x=1`$ belong to one of the n-cycles, while for even N, only $`x=1`$ belongs to one of the n-cycles of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x,\alpha )`$ and $`x=0`$ belongs to one of the n-cycles of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha ).`$
For $`\alpha <(\frac{1}{N})(\alpha >N)`$, the formula $`(25)`$ implies that for those cases in which $`x=0(x=1)`$ belongs to one of n-cycles we will have $`\frac{d}{dx}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}<1`$, hence the curve of $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}`$ starts at $`x=0(x=1)`$ beneath the bisector and then crosses it at the next (previous) periodic point with slope greater than one (see Fig. 1), since the formula $`(25)`$ implies that the slope of fixed points increases with the increasing (decreasing) of $`x_k`$, therefore at all periodic points of n-cycles except for $`x=0(x=1)`$ the slop is greater than one that is they are unstable, this is possible only if $`x=0(x=1)`$ is the only period one fixed point of these maps.
Hence all n-cycles except for possible period one fixed points $`x=0`$ and $`x=1`$ are unstable, where for $`\alpha [0,\frac{1}{N}]`$, the fixed point $`x=0`$ is stable in maps $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$(for odd N) and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha )`$ (for even N), while for $`\alpha [N,\mathrm{})`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x,\alpha )`$, the $`x=1`$ is stable fixed point in maps $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$(for odd N).
As an example we give below some of these maps:

$$\varphi _2^{(1)}=\frac{\alpha ^2(2x1)^2}{4x(1x)+\alpha ^2(2x1)^2},$$

$$\varphi _2^{(2)}=\frac{4\alpha ^2x(1x)}{1+4(\alpha ^21)x(1x)},$$

$$\varphi _3^{(1)}=\varphi _3^{(2)}=\frac{\alpha ^2x(4x3)^2}{\alpha ^2x(4x3)^2+(1x)(4x1)^2},$$

$$\varphi _4^{(1)}=\frac{\alpha ^2(18x(1x))^2}{\alpha ^2(18x(1x))^2+16x(1x)(12x)^2},$$

$$\varphi _4^{(2)}=\frac{16\alpha ^2x(1x)(12x)^2}{(18x+8x^2)^2+16\alpha ^2x(1x)(12x)^2},$$

$$\varphi _5^{(1)}=\varphi _5^{(2)}=\frac{\alpha ^2x(16x^220x+5)^2}{\alpha ^2x(16x^220x+5)^2+(1x)(16x^2(2x1))}.$$

Below we also introduce their conjugate or isomorphic maps which will be very useful in derivation of their invariant measure and calculation of their KS-entropy in the next section. Conjugacy means that the invertible map $`h(x)=\frac{1x}{x}`$ maps $`I=[0,1]`$ into $`[0,\mathrm{})`$ and transforms maps $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$ into $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$ defined as:

$$\{\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(1)}(x,\alpha )=h\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x,\alpha )h^{(1)}=\frac{1}{\alpha ^2}\mathrm{tan}^2(N\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{x}),\hfill \\ \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha )=h\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha )h^1=\frac{1}{\alpha ^2}\mathrm{cot}^2(N\mathrm{arctan}\frac{1}{\sqrt{x}}).\hfill \end{array}$$
(2-6)
## 3 INVARIANT MEASURE

Dynamical systems, even apparently simple dynamical systems as those described by maps of an interval can display a rich variety of different asymptotic behavior. On measure theoretical level these types of behavior are described by SRB  or invariant measure describing statistically stationary states of the system. The probability measure $`\mu `$ on $`[0,1]`$ is called an SRB or invariant measure of the maps $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$ given in $`(21)`$ and $`(22)`$, if it is $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$-Invariant and absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue measure. For deterministic system such as $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$-map, the $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$-invariance means that its invariant measure $`\mu (x)`$ fulfills the following formal Ferbenius-Perron integral equation

$$\mu (y)=_0^1\delta (y\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha ))\mu (x)𝑑x.$$

This is equivalent to:

$$\mu (y)=\underset{x\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{1(1,2)}(y,\alpha )}{}\mu (x)\frac{dx}{dy},$$
(3-1)
defining the action of standard Ferobenius-Perron operator for the map $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N(x)`$ over a function as:

$$P_{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}}f(y)=\underset{x\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{1(1,2)}(y,\alpha )}{}f(x)\frac{dx}{dy}.$$
(3-2)
We see that, the invariant measure $`\mu (x)`$ is given as the eigenstate of the Frobenios-Perron operator $`P_{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}}`$ corresponding to largest eigenvalue 1.
As we will prove below the measure $`\mu _{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )}(x,\beta )`$ defined as:

$$\frac{1}{\pi }\frac{\sqrt{\beta }}{\sqrt{x(1x)}(\beta +(1\beta )x)},$$
(3-3)
with $`\beta >0`$ is the invariant measure of the maps $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$ provided that we choose the parameter $`\alpha `$ in the following form :

$$\alpha =\frac{{}_{k=0}{}^{[\frac{(N1)}{2}]}C_{2k+1}^{N}\beta ^k}{{}_{k=0}{}^{[\frac{N}{2}]}C_{2k}^{N}\beta ^k},$$
(3-4)
in $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$ maps for odd values of N and in $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x,\alpha )`$maps for even values of N

$$\alpha =\frac{\beta {}_{k=0}{}^{[\frac{(N)}{2}]}C_{2k}^{N}\beta ^k}{{}_{k=0}{}^{[\frac{(N1)}{2}]}C_{2k+1}^{N}\beta ^k},$$
(3-5)
in $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha )`$ maps for even values of N, where $`[]`$ means greatest integer part.
As we see the above measure is defined only for $`\beta >0`$ hence, from the relations $`(34)`$ and $`(35)`$, it follows that the maps $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$ have invariant measure only for $`\alpha (\frac{1}{N},N)`$ for odd values of N, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x,\alpha )`$ maps have invariant measure for $`\alpha (0,N)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha )`$ have for $`\alpha (\frac{1}{N},\mathrm{})`$ for even N, respectively. For other values of $`\alpha `$ these maps have single attractive fixed points, which is the same as the prediction of the previous section.
In order to prove that measure $`(33)`$ satisfies equation $`(31)`$, with $`\alpha `$ given by relations $`(34)`$ and $`(35)`$, it is rather convenient to consider the conjugate map:

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(1)}(x,\alpha )=\frac{1}{\alpha ^2}\mathrm{tan}^2(N\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{x}),$$
(3-6)
with measure $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }_{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(1)}}`$related to the measure $`\mu _{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(1)}}`$ to the following relation:

$$\stackrel{~}{\mu }_{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(1)}}(x)=\frac{1}{(1+x)^2}\mu _{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}}(\frac{1}{1+x}).$$

Denoting $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(1)}(x,\alpha )`$ on the left hand side of $`(36)`$ by $`y`$ and inverting it, we get :

$$x_k=\mathrm{tan}^2(\frac{1}{N}\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{y\alpha ^2}+\frac{k\pi }{N})k=1,..,N.$$
(3-7)
Then, taking derivative of $`x_k`$ with respect to $`y`$, we obtain:

$$\frac{dx_k}{dy}=\frac{\alpha }{N}\sqrt{x_k(1+x_k)}\frac{1}{\sqrt{y}(1+\alpha ^2y)}.$$
(3-8)
Substituting the above result in equation $`(31)`$, we have:

$$\stackrel{~}{\mu }_{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(1)}}(y)\sqrt{y}(1+\alpha ^2y)=\frac{1}{N}\underset{k}{}\sqrt{x_k}(1+x_k\stackrel{~}{\mu }_{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(1)}}(x_k)),$$
(3-9)
considering the following anzats for the invariant measure $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }_{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(1)}}(y)`$:

$$\stackrel{~}{\mu }_{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(1)}}(y)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{y}(1+\beta y)},$$
(3-10)
the above equation reduces to:

$$\frac{1+\alpha ^2y}{1+\beta y}=\frac{\alpha }{N}\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left(\frac{1+x_k}{1+\beta x_k}\right)$$

which can be written as:

$$\frac{1+\alpha ^2y}{1+\beta y}=\frac{\alpha }{\beta }+\left(\frac{\beta 1}{\beta ^2}\right)\frac{}{\beta ^1}(\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Pi }_{k=1}^N(\beta ^1+x_k))).$$
(3-11)
To evaluate the second term in the right hand side of above formulas we can write the equation in the following form:

$$0=\alpha ^2y\mathrm{cos}^2(N\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{x})\mathrm{sin}^2(N\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{x})$$

$$=\frac{(1)^N}{(1+x)^N}\left(\alpha ^2y(\underset{k=0}{\overset{[\frac{N}{2}]}{}}C_{2k}^N(1)^Nx^k)^2x(\underset{k=0}{\overset{[\frac{N1}{2}]}{}}C_{2k+1}^N(1)^Nx^k)^2\right),$$

$$=\frac{\text{constant}}{(1+x)^N}\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}(xx_k),$$

where $`x_k`$ are the roots of equation $`(36)`$, and are given by formula $`(37)`$.Therefore, we have:

$$\frac{}{\beta ^1}\mathrm{ln}\left(\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}(\beta ^1+x_k)\right)$$

$$=\frac{}{\beta ^1}\mathrm{ln}\left[(1\beta ^1)^N(\alpha ^2y\mathrm{cos}^2(N\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{\beta ^1})\mathrm{sin}^2(N\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{\beta ^1}))\right]$$

$$=\frac{N\beta }{\beta 1}+\frac{\beta N(1+\alpha ^2y)A(\frac{1}{\beta })}{(A(\frac{1}{\beta }))^2\beta ^2y+(B(\frac{1}{\beta }))^2},$$
(3-12)
with polynomials $`A(x)`$ and $`B(x)`$ defined as:

$$A(x)=\mathrm{\Pi }_{k=0}^{[\frac{N}{2}]}C_{2k}^Nx^k,$$

$$B(x)=\mathrm{\Pi }_{k=0}^{[\frac{N1}{2}]}C_{2k+1}^Nx^k.$$
(3-13)
In deriving the of above formula we have used the following identities:

$$\mathrm{cos}(N\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{x})=\frac{A(x)}{(1+x)^{\frac{N}{2}}},$$

$$\mathrm{sin}(N\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{x})=\sqrt{x}\frac{B(x)}{(1+x)^{\frac{N}{2}}},$$
(3-14)
inserting the results $`(312)`$, in $`(36)`$, we get:

$$\frac{1+\alpha ^2y}{1+\beta y}=\frac{1+\alpha ^2y}{(\frac{B(\frac{1}{\beta })}{\alpha A(\frac{1}{\beta })}+\beta (\frac{\alpha A(\frac{1}{\beta })}{B(\frac{1}{\beta })})}.$$

Hence to get the final result we have to choose the parameter $`\alpha `$ as:

$$\alpha =\frac{B(\frac{1}{\beta })}{A(\frac{1}{\beta })}.$$

With the procedure similar to the one given above we could get the relation $`(311)`$ between the parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ for the second kind of maps.

## 4 KOLMOGROV-SINAI ENTROPY

Kolomogrov-Sinai entropy (KS) or metric entropy measure how chaotic a dynamical system is and it is proportional to the rate at which information about the state of dynamical system is lost in the course of time or iteration. Therefore, it can also be defined as the average rate of loss information for a discrete measurable dynamical system $`(\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha ),\mu )`$, by introducing a partition $`\alpha =A_c(n_1,\mathrm{}..n_\gamma )`$ of the interval $`[0,1]`$ into individual laps $`A_i`$ one can define the usual entropy associated with the partition by:

$$H(\mu ,\gamma )=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n(\gamma )}{}}m(A_c)\mathrm{ln}m(A_c),$$

where $`m(A_c)={}_{nA_i}{}^{}\mu (x)𝑑x`$ is the invariant measure of $`A_i`$. Defining n-th refining $`\gamma (n)`$ of $`\gamma `$:

$$\gamma ^n=\underset{k=0}{\overset{n1}{}}(\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha ))^{(k)}(\gamma ),$$

and defining an entropy per unit step of refining by :

$$h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha ),\gamma )=lim{}_{n\mathrm{}}{}^{}(\frac{1}{n}H(\mu ,\gamma )),$$

if the size of individual laps of $`\gamma (N)`$ tends to zero as n increases, then the above entropy is known as Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy, that is:

$$h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha ))=h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha ),\gamma ).$$

KS-entropy , which is a quantitative measure of the rate of information lost with the refining, may also be written as:

$$h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha ))=\mu (x)𝑑x\mathrm{ln}\frac{d}{dx}\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha ),$$
(4-1)
which is also a statistical mechanical expression for the Lyapunov characteristic exponent, that is, mean divergence rate of two nearby orbits. The measurable dynamical system $`(\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha ),\mu )`$ is chaotic for $`h>0`$ and predictive for $`h=0`$.
In order to calculate the KS-entropy of the maps $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$, it is rather convenient to consider their conjugate maps given by $`(26)`$, since it can be shown that KS-entropy is a kind of topological invariant, that is, it is preserved under conjugacy map, hence we have:

$$h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha ))=h(\stackrel{~}{\mu },\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )).$$
(4-2)
Using the integral $`(41)`$, the KS-entropy of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(\alpha ,x)`$ can be writen as

$$h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha ))=h(\stackrel{~}{\mu },\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha ))$$

$$=\frac{1}{\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\sqrt{\beta }dx}{\sqrt{x}(1+\beta x)}\mathrm{ln}(\frac{1}{a^2}\frac{d}{dx}(\mathrm{cot}^2(N\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{x})))$$

$$=\frac{1}{\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\beta dx}{\sqrt{x}(1+\beta x)}ln\left(\frac{N}{\alpha ^2}\times \frac{1}{\sqrt{x}(1+x)}\frac{\mathrm{cos}N(\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{x})}{\mathrm{sin}^3N(\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{x})}\right).$$
(4-3)
Using the relations given in $`(314)`$ we have

$$h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha ))=\frac{1}{\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\sqrt{\beta }dx}{\sqrt{x}(1+\beta x)}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{N}{\alpha ^2}\frac{(1+x)^{N1}A(x)}{x^2(B(x))^3}\right),$$
(4-4)
for even N, and

$$h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha ))=\frac{1}{\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\sqrt{\beta }dx}{\sqrt{x}(1+\beta x)}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{N}{\alpha ^2}\frac{(1+x)^{N1}B(x)}{(A(x))^3}\right).$$
(4-5)
for odd N.
Considering again the relations given in $`(314)`$, we see that polynomials appearing in the numerator ( denominator ) of integrand appearing on the right hand side of equation $`(45)`$, have $`\frac{[N1]}{2}`$ $`(\frac{[N]}{2})`$ simple roots, denoted by $`x_k^Bk=1,\mathrm{},[\frac{N1}{2}]`$ $`(x_k^Ak=1,\mathrm{},[\frac{N}{2}])`$ in the interval $`[0,\mathrm{})`$. Hence, we can write the above formula in the following form:

$$h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha ))=\frac{1}{\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\sqrt{\beta }dx}{\sqrt{x}(1+\beta x)}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{N}{\alpha ^2}\times \frac{(1+x)^{N1}_{k=1}^{[\frac{N}{2}]}xx_k^A}{x^2_{k=1}^{[\frac{N1}{2}]}xx_k^B^3}\right),$$

for even N, and

$$h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha ))=\frac{1}{\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\sqrt{\beta }dx}{\sqrt{x}(1+\beta x)}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{N}{\alpha ^2}\times \frac{(1+x)^{N1}_{k=1}^{[\frac{N1}{2}]}xx_k^B}{_{k=1}^{[\frac{N}{2}]}xx_k^A^3}\right).$$

for odd N.
Now making the following change of variable $`x=\frac{1}{\beta }\mathrm{tan}^2\frac{\mathrm{\Theta }}{2}`$, and taking into account that degree of numerators and denominator are equal for both even and odd values of N, we get

$$h(\alpha ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha ))=\frac{1}{\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}d\theta \{\mathrm{ln}(\frac{N}{\alpha ^2})+(N1)\mathrm{ln}(\beta +1+(\beta 1)\mathrm{cos}\theta )$$

$$+\underset{k=1}{\overset{[\frac{N}{2}]}{}}\mathrm{ln}1x_k^A\beta +(1+x_k^A\beta )\mathrm{cos}\theta 3\underset{k=1}{\overset{[\frac{N1}{2}]}{}}\mathrm{ln}1x_k^B\beta +(1+x_k^B\beta )\mathrm{cos}\theta $$

$$2\mathrm{ln}1+cos\theta \},$$

for even and

$$h(\alpha ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha ))=\frac{1}{\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}d\theta \{\mathrm{ln}(\frac{N}{\alpha ^2})+(N1)\mathrm{ln}(\beta +1+(\beta 1)\mathrm{cos}\theta )$$

$$+\underset{k=1}{\overset{[\frac{N1}{2}]}{}}\mathrm{ln}1x_k^B\beta +(1+x_k^B\beta )\mathrm{cos}\theta 3\underset{k=1}{\overset{[\frac{N}{2}]}{}}\mathrm{ln}1x_k^A\beta +(1+x_k^A\beta )\mathrm{cos}\theta \}.$$

for odd N.
Using the following integrals:

$$\frac{1}{\pi }_0^\pi \mathrm{ln}a+b\mathrm{cos}\theta =\{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{ln}\frac{a+\sqrt{a^2b^2}}{2}a>b\hfill \\ \mathrm{ln}\frac{b}{2}ab,\hfill \end{array}$$

we get

$$h(\alpha ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha ))=\{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{N}{\alpha ^2}\frac{(\beta +1+2\sqrt{\beta })^{N1}_{k=1}^{[\frac{N}{2}]}(1+x_k^A\beta )}{\left(_{k=1}^{[\frac{N1}{2}]}(1+x_k^B\beta )\right)^3}\right)\text{for even N}\hfill \\ \\ \mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{N}{\alpha ^2}\frac{(\beta +1+2\sqrt{\beta })^{N1}_{k=1}^{[\frac{N1}{2}]}(1+x_k^B\beta )}{\left(_{k=1}^{[\frac{N}{2}]}(1+x_k^A\beta )\right)^3}\right)\text{for odd N},\hfill \end{array}$$

or

$$h(\alpha ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha ))=\{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{N}{\alpha ^2}\frac{(1+\beta +2\sqrt{\beta })^{N1}\beta ^2A(\frac{1}{\beta })}{\beta ^{(N1)}\left(B(\frac{1}{\beta })\right)^3}\right)\text{for even N}\hfill \\ \\ \mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{N}{\alpha ^2}\frac{(1+\beta +2\sqrt{\beta })^{N1}B(\frac{1}{\beta })}{\beta ^{(N1)}\left(A(\frac{1}{\beta })\right)^3}\right)\text{for odd N}.\hfill \end{array}$$

Using the relation:

$$\alpha =\{\begin{array}{c}\beta \frac{A(\frac{1}{\beta })}{B(\frac{1}{\beta })}\text{for even N}\hfill \\ \\ \frac{B(\frac{1}{\beta })}{A(\frac{1}{\beta })}\text{for odd N},\hfill \end{array}$$

we get

$$h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha ))=\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{N(1+\beta +2\sqrt{\beta })^{N1}}{(\mathrm{\Pi }_{k=0}^{[\frac{N}{2}]}C_{2k}^N\beta ^k)(\mathrm{\Pi }_{k=0}^{[\frac{N1}{2}]}C_{2k+1}^N\beta ^k)}\right).$$
(4-6)
With a calculation rather similar to the one given above we can calculate the KS-entropy of the $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^1(x,\alpha )`$ maps where the results are the same as those given by $`(46)`$.
The KS-entropy $`(46)`$ is invariant with respect to $`\beta (\frac{1}{\beta })`$, therefore, it has the same asymptotic behavior near $`\beta 0`$ and $`\beta \mathrm{}`$ where its asymptotic forms read

$$\{\begin{array}{c}h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha =N+0^{}))(N\alpha )^{\frac{1}{2}}\hfill \\ h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha =\frac{1}{N}+0^+))(\alpha \frac{1}{N})^{\frac{1}{2}},\hfill \end{array}$$

for odd N and:

$$\{\begin{array}{c}h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1)}(x,\alpha =N+0^{}))(N\alpha )^{\frac{1}{2}}\hfill \\ h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(2)}(x,\alpha =\frac{1}{N}+0^+))(\alpha \frac{1}{N})^{\frac{1}{2}},\hfill \end{array}$$

for even N. The above asymptotic form indicates that the maps, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$ belong to the same universality class which is different from the universality class of pitch fork bifurcating maps but their asymptotic behavior is similar to class of intermittent maps, even though intermittency can not occur in these maps for any values of parameter $`\alpha `$, since the maps $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$ and their n-composition $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(n)}`$ do not have minimum values other than zero and maximum values other than one in $`[0,1].`$

## 5 SIMULATION

Here in this section we try to calculate Lyapunov characteristic exponent of maps $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$, $`N=1,2,\mathrm{}.,5`$ in order to investigate these maps numerically. In fact, Lyapunov characteristic exponent is the characteristic exponent of the rate of average magnificent of the neighborhood of an arbitrary point $`x_0`$ and it is denoted by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(x_0)`$ which is written as:

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(1,2)}(x_0)=lim_n\mathrm{}\mathrm{ln}(\stackrel{n}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}\mathrm{}.\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x_K,\alpha )}}$$

$$=lim_n\mathrm{}\underset{k=0}{\overset{n1}{}}\mathrm{ln}\frac{d\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x_k,\alpha )}{dx},$$
(5-1)
where $`x_k=\stackrel{k}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}\mathrm{}.\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x_0)}}`$ . It is obvious that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(1,2)}(x_0)<0`$ for an attractor, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(1,2)}(x_0)>0`$ for a repeller and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(1,2)}(x_0)=0`$ for marginal situation. Also the Liapunov number is independent of initial point $`x_0`$, provided that the motion inside the invariant manifold is ergodic, thus $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(1,2)}(x_0)`$ characterizes the invariant manifold of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}`$ as a whole. For values of parameter $`\alpha `$ or $`\beta `$, such that the map $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}`$ be measurable, Birkohf ergodic theorem implies equality of KS-entropy and Liapunov characteristic exponent, that is:

$$h(\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }_n^{(1,2)})=\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(1,2)}(x_0,\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}),$$
(5-2)
Comparison of analytically calculated KS-entropy of maps $`\mathrm{\Phi }_N^{(1,2)}(x,\alpha )`$ for $`N=1,2,\mathrm{}10`$ , (see Figures $`5,6`$ and $`7`$ for $`N=2`$ and $`3`$ ) with the corresponding Lyapunov characteristic exponent obtained by simulation, indicate that in chaotic region, these maps are ergodic as Birkohf ergodic Theorem predicts. In non chaotic region of parameter Lyapunov characteristic exponent is negative, since in this region we have only stable period one fixed points without bifurcation. In summation, combining the analytic discussion of section II with the numerical simulation we deduce that these maps are ergodic in certain values of their parameter as explained above and in complementary interval of parameter they have only a single period one attractive fixed point, such that in contrary to the most of usual one-dimensional one-parameter family of maps they have only a bifurcation from a period one attractive fixed point to chaotic state or vise versa.

## 6 Conclusion

We have given hierarchy of exactly solvable one-parameter family of one-dimensional chaotic maps with an invariant measure, that is measurable dynamical system with an interesting property of being either chaotic (proper to say ergodic ) or having stable period one fixed point and they bifurcate from a stable single periodic state to chaotic one and vice-versa without having usual period doubling or period-n-tupling scenario.
Perhaps this interesting property is due to existence of invariant measure for a range of values of parameter of these maps. Hence, to approve this conjecture, it would be interesting to find other measurable one parameter maps, specially higher dimensional maps, which is under investigation.


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# Physical implementation for entanglement purification of Gaussian continuous variable quantum states

## I Introduction

Quantum entanglement plays an essential role in many interesting quantum information protocols, such as in quantum key distribution and quantum teleportation . To faithfully realize these protocols, first we need to generate a maximally entangled state. In reality, however, due to loss and decoherence, normally we can only generate partially entangled states between distant sides . Entanglement purification is further needed which distills a maximally entangled state from several pairs of partially entangled states using local quantum operations and classical communications . For qubit systems, efficient entanglement purification protocols have been found . Recently, quantum information protocols have been extended from qubit systems to continuous variable systems, such as continuous variable teleportation , continuous variable computation  and error correction , continuous variable cryptography , and also the notions of continuous variable inseparability  and bound entanglement  have been investigated. For physical implementation, Gaussian continuous variable entangled states (i.e., states whose Wigner functions are Gaussians) can be generated experimentally by transmitting two-mode squeezed light, and this kind of entanglement has been demonstrated in the recent experiment of continuous variable teleportation . Obviously, it is useful to consider purification of continuous variable entanglement, that is, to generate a desired more entangled state from some realistic continuous entangled states. We have recently proposed an efficient continuous variable entanglement purification protocol . In this paper, we present the mathematical details of this purification protocol together with new results on its physical implementation. In particular, we take into account many important imperfections in a realistic experimental setup, and calculate their influence on the purification scheme. Quantitative requirements are given for the relevant experimental parameters. These calculations make necessary preparations for a real experiment. We also show how to generate Gaussian continuous entangled states between two distant high finesse cavities, which is the first step for the physical implementation of the purification protocol.

It should be noted that with direct extensions of the purification protocols for qubit systems, it is possible to increase entanglement for a special class of less realistic continuous entangled states . Unfortunately, with these direct extensions no entanglement increase has been found till now for realistic Gaussian continuous entangled states. In  a protocol to increase the entanglement for the special case of pure two-mode squeezed states has been proposed, which is based on conditional photon subtraction. For its practical realization, the efficiency, however, seems to be an issue. In contrast, the purification scheme discussed in this paper has the following favorable properties: (i) For pure states it reaches the maximal allowed efficiency in the asymptotic limit (when the number of pairs of modes goes to infinity); (ii) It can be readily extended to distill maximally entangled states from a relevant class of mixed Gaussian states which result from losses in the light transmission; (iii) An experimental scheme is possible for physical implementation of the purification protocol using high finesse cavities and cross Kerr nonlinearities.

The paper is arranged as follows: In section 2 we show how to generate a Gaussian continuous entangled state between two distant cavities from the broadband squeezed light provided by a nondegenerate optical parametric amplifier (NOPA). Light transmission loss is taken into account. In sections 3 and 4 we give a detailed description of the purification protocol. Section 3 shows how to generate a maximally entangled state from pure two-mode squeezed states based on a local quantum non-demolition (QND) measurement of the total photon number, and section 4 extends the purification protocol to include the mixed Gaussian continuous states which are evolved from the pure two-mode squeezed states due to the unavoidable light transmission loss. In section 5, we describe a cavity scheme to realize the local QND measurement of the total photon number, and deduce conditions for the QND measurement. Then, in section 6, we extensively discuss many imperfections for a real experiment on QND measurements, and deduce quantitative requirements for the relevant experimental parameters. Last, we summarize the results, and give some typical parameter estimations.

## II Generation of continuous entangled states between two distant cavities

Our source of entangled light field is taken to be a NOPA operating below threshold . The light fields may be nondegenerate in polarization or in frequency. The two NOPA cavity modes $`c_A`$ and $`c_B`$ are assumed to have the same output coupling rate $`\kappa _c`$. The dynamic in the NOPA cavity is described by the Langevin equations (in the rotating frame)

$`\underset{A}{\overset{.}{c}}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵc_B^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _c}{2}}c_A\sqrt{\kappa _c}c_{iA},`$ (1)
$`\underset{B}{\overset{}{\stackrel{.}{c}}}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ^{}c_A{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _c}{2}}c_B^{}\sqrt{\kappa _c}c_{iB}^{},`$ ()
where $`ϵ`$ is the pumping rate with $`\left|ϵ\right|<\kappa _c/2`$ (below threshold), and $`c_{iA}`$ and $`c_{iB}`$ are vacuum inputs. The NOPA outputs $`c_{oA}`$ and $`c_{oB}`$ are given respectively by $`c_{o\alpha }=c_{i\alpha }+\sqrt{\kappa _c}c_\alpha `$ $`\left(\alpha =A,B\right)`$. The two outputs, perhaps after a long distance propagation, are incident on distant high finesse cavities A and B. The cavities A and B are assumed to have the same damping rate $`\kappa `$ with $`\kappa \kappa _c`$. The schematic setup is shown by Fig. 1.

Under the condition $`\kappa \kappa _c`$, the dynamics in the NOPA cavity is much faster than those in the cavities A and B, so we can assume a steady state for the NOPA outputs. The steady NOPA outputs are described by squeezed white noise operators with the following correlations

$`c_{oA}\left(t\right)c_{oB}\left(t^{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`M\delta \left(tt^{}\right),`$ (2)
$`c_{o\alpha }^{}\left(t\right)c_{o\alpha }\left(t^{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`N\delta \left(tt^{}\right),\text{ }\left(\alpha =A,B\right),`$ ()
$`c_{o\alpha }\left(t\right)c_{o\alpha }^{}\left(t^{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(N+1\right)\delta \left(tt^{}\right),\text{ }\left(\alpha =A,B\right),`$ (3)
where $`N`$ and $`M`$, satisfying $`M=\sqrt{N\left(N+1\right)}`$, are determined by the NOPA coupling and pumping rates through $`N=\left|ϵ\right|^2\kappa _c^2/\left(\frac{\kappa _c^2}{4}\left|ϵ\right|^2\right)^2`$ and $`M=\left|ϵ\right|\kappa _c\left(\frac{\kappa _c^2}{4}+\left|ϵ\right|^2\right)/\left(\frac{\kappa _c^2}{4}\left|ϵ\right|^2\right)^2`$.

To get the steady state of the cavities A and B, we note that their inputs $`a_{iA}`$ and $`a_{iB}`$ are respectively the NOPA outputs $`c_{oA}`$ and $`c_{oB}`$ with neglect of the losses during light propagation. The Langevin equations for the cavity modes $`a_A`$ and $`a_B`$ have the form

$`\underset{\alpha }{\overset{.}{a}}={\displaystyle \frac{\kappa }{2}}a_\alpha \sqrt{\kappa }a_{i\alpha },\text{ }(\alpha =A,B),`$

with the following solution

$$a_\alpha \left(t\right)=a_\alpha \left(0\right)e^{\frac{\kappa }{2}t}\sqrt{\kappa }_0^te^{\frac{\kappa }{2}\left(tt^{}\right)}a_{i\alpha }\left(t^{}\right)𝑑t^{}.$$
(4)
When $`\kappa t`$ is considerably larger than $`1`$, from Eqs. (2) and (3), it follows that

$`a_Aa_B`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{N\left(N+1\right)},`$ (4)
$`a_\alpha ^{}a_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`N,\text{ }\left(\alpha =A,B\right),`$ ()
$`a_\alpha a_\alpha ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(N+1\right),\text{ }\left(\alpha =A,B\right).`$ (5)
On the other hand, we know that two modes driven by a white noise are in Gaussian states at any time. A Gaussian state with the correlations (4) is necessarily a pure two-mode squeezed state. So the steady state of the cavity modes $`a_A`$ and $`a_B`$ is

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{12}=S_{AB}\left(r\right)|\text{vac}_{AB},$$
(6)
where the squeezing operator $`S_{AB}\left(r\right)=\mathrm{exp}\left[r\left(a_A^{}a_B^{}a_Aa_B\right)\right]`$ and the squeezing parameter $`r`$ is determined by $`\mathrm{coth}(r)=\sqrt{N+1}.`$

Next we include some important sources of noise in the state generation process. The noise includes the losses in the NOPA cavity and the light transmission loss from the NOPA cavity to the cavities A and B. With a small loss rate $`\eta _0\kappa _c`$ for the modes $`c_A`$ and $`c_B`$ in the NOPA cavity, the Langevin equation (1) is replaced by

$`\underset{A}{\overset{.}{c}}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵc_B^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _c+\eta _0}{2}}c_A\sqrt{\kappa _c}c_{iA}\sqrt{\eta _0}v_{iA},`$ (6)
$`\underset{B}{\overset{}{\stackrel{.}{c}}}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ^{}c_A{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _c+\eta _0}{2}}c_B^{}\sqrt{\kappa _c}c_{iB}^{}\sqrt{\eta _0}v_{iB}^{},`$ ()
where $`v_{iA}`$ and $`v_{iB}`$ are standard vacuum white noise, and the NOPA outputs are still given by $`c_{o\alpha }=c_{i\alpha }+\sqrt{\kappa _c}c_\alpha `$ $`\left(\alpha =A,B\right)`$. On the other hand, the transmission loss of light can be described by

$$a_{i\alpha }=c_{o\alpha }\sqrt{e^{\eta _\alpha \tau }}+v_\alpha \sqrt{1e^{\eta _\alpha \tau }},\text{ }\left(\alpha =A,B\right),$$
(7)
where $`\tau `$ is the transmission time, $`\eta _A`$ and $`\eta _B`$ are respectively the transmission loss rates for the outputs $`c_{oA}`$ and $`c_{oB}`$, and $`v_A`$ and $`v_B`$ are standard vacuum white noise. From Eqs. (6) and (7), it follows that the inputs for the cavities A and B have the following correlations

$`a_{iA}\left(t\right)a_{iB}\left(t^{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{N^{}\left(N^{}+1\right)}e^{\frac{\eta _A^{}+\eta _B^{}}{2}\tau }\delta \left(tt^{}\right),`$
$`a_{i\alpha }^{}\left(t\right)a_{i\alpha }\left(t^{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`N^{}e^{\eta _\alpha ^{}\tau }\delta \left(tt^{}\right),\text{ }\left(\alpha =A,B\right),`$
$`a_{i\alpha }\left(t\right)a_{i\alpha }^{}\left(t^{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(N^{}e^{\eta _\alpha ^{}\tau }+1\right)\delta \left(tt^{}\right),\text{ }\left(\alpha =A,B\right).`$
where the total loss rates $`\eta _\alpha ^{}=\eta _\alpha +\frac{1}{\tau }\mathrm{ln}\left(1+\eta _0/\kappa _c\right)=\eta _\alpha +\eta _0/\left(\kappa _c\tau \right)`$ $`\left(\alpha =A,B\right)`$, and the parameter $`N^{}=\left|ϵ\right|^2\left(\kappa _c+\eta _0\right)^2/\left(\frac{\left(\kappa _c+\eta _0\right)^2}{4}\left|ϵ\right|^2\right)^2N`$. The steady state of the two cavity modes $`a_A`$ and $`a_B`$ is thus a Gaussian state with the non-zero correlations given by

$`a_Aa_B`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{N\left(N+1\right)}e^{\frac{\eta _A^{}+\eta _B^{}}{2}\tau },`$ (8)
$`a_\alpha ^{}a_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`Ne^{\eta _\alpha ^{}\tau },\text{ }\left(\alpha =A,B\right),`$ ()
$`a_\alpha a_\alpha ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(Ne^{\eta _\alpha ^{}\tau }+1\right),\text{ }\left(\alpha =A,B\right).`$ (9)
The Gaussian state is completely determined by these correlations. The Gaussian state (8) can be equivalently described as the solution at time $`t=\tau `$ of the following master equation

$`\stackrel{.}{\rho }`$ $`=`$ $`\eta _A^{}\left(a_A\rho a_A^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}a_A^{}a_{A1}\rho {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\rho a_A^{}a_A\right)`$ ()
$`+\eta _B^{}\left(a_B\rho a_B^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}a_B^{}a_B\rho {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\rho a_B^{}a_B\right)`$
with the initial state $`\rho \left(0\right)=|\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}\mathrm{\Psi }|`$, where $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}`$ is defined by Eq. (5). This equivalence simplifies the physical picture in section 4, where we will use the master equation (9) to describe the state generation noise.

## III Entanglement concentration of pure two-mode squeezed states

In the above, we have shown how to generate continuous partially entangled states between two distant cavities. In the case of no noise in the state generation process, the cavities are in a pure two-mode squeezed state. In this section, we will show how to concentrate continuous variable entanglement, that is, starting from several pairs of continuous entangled states, we want to get a state with more entanglement through only local operations. The section is divided into two parts. The first part describes the purification protocol for two entangled pairs, and the second part extends the protocol to include multiple pairs.

### A Concentration of two entangled pairs

Assume now we have two cavities $`A_1,A_2`$ and $`B_1,B_2`$ on each side. Each pair of cavities $`A_i,B_i`$ $`\left(i=1,2\right)`$ are prepared in the state (5), which is now denoted by $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_iB_i}`$. $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_iB_i}`$, expressed in the number basis, has the form

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_iB_i}=\sqrt{1\lambda ^2}\stackrel{\mathrm{}}{\underset{n=0}{}}\lambda ^n|n_{A_i}|n_{B_i},$$
(11)
where $`\lambda =\mathrm{tanh}\left(r\right)`$. Equation (10) is just the Schmidt decomposition of the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_iB_i}`$. For a pure state, the entanglement is uniquely quantified by the von Neumann entropy of the reduced density operator of its one-component. The entanglement of the state (10) is thus expressed as

$$E\left(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_iB_i}\right)=\mathrm{cosh}^2r\mathrm{log}\left(\mathrm{cosh}^2r\right)\mathrm{sinh}^2r\mathrm{log}\left(\mathrm{sinh}^2r\right).$$
(12)
The joint state of the two entangled pairs $`A_1,B_1`$ and $`A_2,B_2`$ is simply the product

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_1B_1A_2B_2}`$ $`=`$ $`S_{A_1B_1}\left(r\right)|\text{vac}_{A_1B_1}S_{A_2B_2}\left(r\right)|\text{vac}_{A_2B_2}`$ (13)
$`=`$ $`\left(1\lambda ^2\right){\displaystyle \stackrel{\mathrm{}}{\underset{j=0}{}}}\lambda ^j\sqrt{1+j}|j_{A_1A_2B_1B_2},`$ ()
where $`|j_{A_1A_2B_1B_2}`$ is defined as

$$|j_{A_1A_2B_1B_2}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+j}}\stackrel{j}{\underset{n=0}{}}|n,jn_{A_1A_2}|n,jn_{B_1B_2}.$$
(14)
We now perform a local QND measurement of the total photon number of the two cavities $`A_1,A_2`$. There have been several proposals for doing QND measurements of the photon number, and in section 5, we will describe a cavity scheme for realizing the QND measurement of the total photon number of two local cavities. Here we simply assume this type of measurement can be done. After the QND measurement of the total number $`n_{A_1}+n_{A_2}`$, the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_1B_1A_2B_2}`$ is collapsed into $`|j_{A_1A_2B_1B_2}`$ with probability

$$p_j=\left(1\lambda ^2\right)^2\lambda ^{2j}\left(j+1\right).$$
(15)
The state $`|j_{A_1A_2B_1B_2}`$ is a maximally entangled state between the two parties $`A_1,A_2`$ and $`B_1,B_2`$ in a $`\left(j+1\right)\times \left(j+1\right)`$-dimensional Hilbert space, and its entanglement is

$$E\left(|j_{A_1A_2B_1B_2}\right)=\mathrm{log}\left(j+1\right).$$
(16)
If $`E\left(|j_{A_1A_2B_1B_2}\right)>E\left(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_iB_i}\right)`$, i.e. $`j>\frac{\left(\mathrm{cosh}\left(r\right)\right)^{\mathrm{cosh}\left(r\right)}}{\left(\mathrm{sinh}\left(r\right)\right)^{\mathrm{sinh}\left(r\right)}}1`$, we get a two-party state with more entanglement. The quantity $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_j=\frac{E\left(|j_{A_1A_2B_1B_2}\right)}{E\left(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_iB_i}\right)}`$ defines the entanglement increase ratio. Fig. 2 shows the probability of success versus entanglement increase ratio for some typical values of the squeezing parameter.

An interesting feature of this entanglement purification protocol is that with any measurement outcome $`j0`$, we always get a useful maximally entangled state in some finite Hilbert space, though the entanglement of the outcome state $`|j_{A_1A_2B_1B_2}`$ does not necessarily exceed that of the original state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_iB_i}`$ if $`j`$ is small. The state $`|j_{A_1A_2B_1B_2}`$ involves two pairs of cavities. If one wants to transfer the entanglement to a single pair of cavity modes, one can make a phase measurement of the cavity mode $`A_2`$. There have been some proposals for doing a phase measurement . A phase measurement of the mode $`A_2`$ with the measurement outcome $`\varphi `$ will convert the state $`|j_{A_1A_2B_1B_2}`$ to the following maximally entangled state of a single pair of cavity modes

$$|j_{A_1A_2}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+j}}\stackrel{j}{\underset{n=0}{}}e^{i\left(jn\right)\varphi }|n_{A_1}|n_{B_1}.$$
(17)
### B Concentration of multiple entangled pairs

The above protocol can be extended straightforwardly to simultaneously concentrate entanglement of multiple cavity-pairs. Simultaneous concentration of multiple entangled pairs is much more effective that the entanglement concentration two by two. Assume that we have $`m`$ cavity-pairs $`A_1,B_1`$, $`A_2,B_2`$, $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`A_m,B_m`$. Each pair of cavities $`A_i,B_i`$ is prepared in the state (10). The joint state of the $`m`$ entangled pairs can be expressed as

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ $`=`$ $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_1B_1}|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_2B_2}\mathrm{}|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_mB_m}`$ (18)
$`=`$ $`\left(1\lambda ^2\right)^{\frac{m}{2}}{\displaystyle \stackrel{\mathrm{}}{\underset{j=0}{}}}\lambda ^j\sqrt{f_j^{\left(m\right)}}|j_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}},`$ ()
where $`\left(A_iB_i\right\}`$ is abbreviation of$`A_1,B_1`$, $`A_2,B_2,`$ $`\mathrm{},`$ $`A_m,B_m`$, and the normalized state $`|j_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ is defined as

$$|j_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{f_j^{\left(m\right)}}}\underset{\begin{array}{c}i_1,i_2,\mathrm{},i_m\\ i_1+i_2+\mathrm{}+i_m=j\end{array}}{}|i_1,i_2,\mathrm{},i_m_{\left(A_i\right\}}|i_1,i_2,\mathrm{},i_m_{\left(B_i\right\}}$$
(19)
The function $`f_j^{\left(m\right)}`$ in Eqs. (17) and (18) is given by

$$f_j^{\left(m\right)}=\frac{\left(j+m1\right)!}{j!\left(m1\right)!}=\left(\begin{array}{c}j+m1\\ m1\end{array}\right).$$
(20)
To concentrate the entanglement, we perform a QND measurement of the total photon number $`n_{A_1}+n_{A_2}+\mathrm{}+n_{A_m}`$. This measurement projects the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ onto a two-party maximally entangled state $`|j_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ with probability

$$p_j^{\left(m\right)}=\left(1\lambda ^2\right)^m\lambda ^{2j}f_j^{\left(m\right)}.$$
(21)
The entanglement of the outcome state $`|j_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ is given by

$$E\left(|j_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}\right)=\mathrm{log}\left(f_j^{\left(m\right)}\right).$$
(22)
Similarly, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_j=E\left(|j_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}\right)/E\left(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_iB_i}\right)`$ defines the entanglement increase ratio, and if $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_j>1`$, we get a more entangled state. For four pairs, the probability of success versus entanglement increase ratio is shown in Fig. 3. There appears a peak in the probability curve for some entanglement increase ratio between $`2`$ and $`3`$.

To measure how efficient the scheme is, we define the entanglement transfer efficiency $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ with the expression

$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}=\frac{\stackrel{\mathrm{}}{\underset{j=0}{}}p_j^{\left(m\right)}E\left(|j_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}\right)}{mE\left(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_iB_i}\right)}.$$
(23)
It is the ratio of the average entanglement after concentration measurement to the initial total entanglement contained in the $`m`$ pairs. Obviously, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}1`$ should always hold. With the squeezing parameter $`r=0.5,`$ $`1.0`$ or $`1.5,`$ the entanglement transfer efficiency versus the number of pairs $`m`$ is shown in Fig. 4.

From the figure, we see that the entanglement transfer efficiency is near to 1 for a large number of pairs. In fact, it can be proven that if $`m`$ goes to infinity, with unit probability we would get a maximally entangled state with entanglement $`mE\left(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_iB_i}\right).`$ To show this, we calculate the mean value and the variance of the distribution $`p_j^{\left(m\right)}`$, and find

$`\overline{j}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m\lambda ^2}{\left(1\lambda ^2\right)}},`$ (24)
$`\overline{\left(\mathrm{\Delta }j\right)^2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m\lambda ^2}{\left(1\lambda ^2\right)^2}}.`$ ()
The results show that if $`m`$ tends to infinity, $`\sqrt{\overline{\left(\mathrm{\Delta }j\right)^2}}/\overline{j}0`$ and the distribution $`p_j^{\left(m\right)}`$ tends to a $`\delta `$-like function. Furthermore, around the mean value $`\overline{j}`$, the entanglement of the resulting state $`|\overline{j}_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ is

$$E\left(|\overline{j}_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}\right)\stackrel{m\mathrm{}}{}mE\left(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_iB_i}\right),$$
(25)
so the entanglement transfer efficiency tends to unity. This proves that the purification method described above is optimal in the asymptotic limit ($`m\mathrm{}`$), analogous to the purification protocol presented in  for the qubit case. For any finite number of entangled pairs, this purification protocol is more efficient than that in , since it takes advantage of the special relations between the coefficients in the two-mode squeezed state.

## IV Entanglement purification of mixed Gaussian continuous entangled states

The assumption of noise-free preparation of partially continuous entangled states is not realistic. If we include the unavoidable light transmission loss and the NOPA cavity loss in the state generation process, in section 2 we have shown that we would get a mixed Gaussian continuous entangled state between two distant cavities. The state is described by the solution at the transmission time $`\tau `$ of the master equation (9), with the ideal two-mode squeezed state (10) at the beginning. If we want to establish $`m`$ entangled cavity-pairs $`A_1,B_1`$, $`A_2,B_2`$, $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`A_m,B_m`$, Eq. (9) can be extended directly to the following form

$$\stackrel{.}{\rho }=i(H_{\text{eff}}\rho \rho H_{\text{eff}}^{})+\stackrel{m}{\underset{i=1}{}}(\eta _A^{}a_{A_i}\rho a_{A_i}^{}+\eta _B^{}a_{B_i}\rho a_{B_i}^{})$$
(26)
where $`\rho `$ is the density operator of the whole $`m`$ entangled pairs with $`\rho \left(0\right)=|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}\mathrm{\Psi }|`$, and the effective Hamiltonian

$$H_{\text{eff}}=i\stackrel{m}{\underset{i=1}{}}\left(\frac{\eta _A^{}}{2}a_{A_i}^{}a_{A_i}+\frac{\eta _B^{}}{2}a_{B_i}^{}a_{B_i}\right).$$
(27)
In Eqs. (25) and (26), we assumed that the total loss rates $`\eta _A^{}`$ and $`\eta _B^{}`$ are the same for the $`m`$ entangled pairs, but $`\eta _A^{}`$ and $`\eta _B^{}`$ may be different from each other. In this section, we will show how to distill entanglement from the kind of realistic continuous entangled states described by the solution of the master equation (25). There are two practical circumstances in which our entanglement purification protocol can be extended straightforwardly to generate maximally entangled states from the mixed Gaussian entangled states. We describe these two circumstances one by one.

### A Case of small state preparation noise

Though the state preparation noise is unavoidable, in many cases it is reasonable to assume that it is quite small. We take $`\eta _A^{}\tau `$ and $`\eta _B^{}\tau `$ as small factors, and solve the master equation (25) perturbatively to the first order of these small factors. It is convenient to use the quantum trajectory language to explain the perturbative solution. In this language, to the first order of $`\eta _A^{}\tau `$ and $`\eta _B^{}\tau `$, the final normalized state of the $`m`$ entangled pairs is either (no jumps)

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }^{\left(0\right)}_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{p^{\left(0\right)}}}}e^{iH_{\text{eff}}\tau }|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ (28)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{p^{\left(0\right)}}}}\left(1\lambda ^2\right)^{\frac{m}{2}}{\displaystyle \stackrel{\mathrm{}}{\underset{j=0}{}}}\lambda ^je^{\frac{\eta _A^{}+\eta _B^{}}{2}\tau j}\sqrt{f_j^{\left(m\right)}}|j_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}},`$ ()
with probability

$$p^{\left(0\right)}=\frac{\left(1\lambda ^2\right)^m}{\left(1\lambda ^2e^{\left(\eta _A^{}+\eta _B^{}\right)\tau }\right)^m}$$
(29)
or (a jump occurred)

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }^{\left(\alpha _i\right)}_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{p^{\left(\alpha _i\right)}}}\sqrt{\eta _\alpha ^{}\tau }a_{\alpha _i}|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}},\text{ }\left(\alpha =A,B\text{ and }i=1,2,\mathrm{},m\right)$$
(30)
with probability

$`p^{\left(\alpha _i\right)}`$ $`=`$ $`\eta _\alpha ^{}\tau \text{ }_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}\mathrm{\Psi }\left|a_{\alpha _i}^{}a_{\alpha _i}\right|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ (31)
$`=`$ $`\overline{n}\eta _\alpha ^{}\tau ,`$ ()
where $`\overline{n}=_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}\mathrm{\Psi }\left|a_{\alpha _i}^{}a_{\alpha _i}\right|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}=\mathrm{sinh}^2\left(r\right)`$ is the mean photon number for a single mode.

Similar to the pure state case, we also use QND measurements of the total photon number to distill entanglement from the mixed continuous state described by Eqs. (27)-(30). The difference is that now we perform QND measurements on both sides A and B. The measurement results are denoted by $`j_A`$ and $`j_B`$, respectively. We then compare $`j_A`$ and $`j_B`$ through classical communication, and keep the outcome state if and only if $`j_A=j_B`$. It is easy to show that the final state is a maximally entangled state in a finite dimensional Hilbert space. Let $`P_A^{\left(j\right)}`$ and $`P_B^{\left(j\right)}`$ denote the projections onto the eigenspace of the corresponding total number operator $`\stackrel{m}{\underset{i=1}{}}a_{A_i}^{}a_{A_i}`$ and $`\stackrel{m}{\underset{i=1}{}}a_{B_i}^{}a_{B_i}`$ with eigenvalue $`j`$, respectively. From Eqs. (27) and (29), it follows

$`P_A^{\left(j\right)}P_B^{\left(j\right)}|\mathrm{\Psi }^{\left(0\right)}_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ $`=`$ $`|j_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}},`$ (32)
$`P_A^{\left(j\right)}P_B^{\left(j\right)}|\mathrm{\Psi }^{\left(\alpha _i\right)}_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ $`=`$ $`0,\text{ }\left(\alpha =A,B\text{ and }i=1,2,\mathrm{},m\right)`$ ()
So if $`j_A=j_B`$, the outcome state is maximally entangled with entanglement $`\mathrm{log}\left(f_j^{\left(m\right)}\right)`$. The components (29) in the mixed density operator, which are not maximally entangled, are discarded through confirmation of the two-side measurement outcomes. Compared with the pure state case, the probability to get the entangled state $`|j_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ is now decreased to

$$p_j^{}=\left(1\lambda ^2\right)^m\lambda ^{2j}f_j^{\left(m\right)}e^{\left(\eta _A^{}+\eta _B^{}\right)\tau j}.$$
(33)
We also note that the projection operators $`P_A^{\left(j\right)}P_B^{\left(j\right)}`$ cannot eliminate the state obtained from the initial state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ by a quantum jump on both sides A and B. The total probability for this kind of quantum jumps to occur is proportional to $`m^2\overline{n}^2\eta _A^{}\eta _B^{}\tau ^2`$. So the condition for small state preparation noise in fact requires

$$m^2\overline{n}^2\left(\eta _A\tau +\eta _0/\kappa _c\right)\left(\eta _B\tau +\eta _0/\kappa _c\right)1.$$
(34)
If the light transmission loss is the dominant noise, Eq. (33) reduces to $`m^2\overline{n}^2\eta _A\eta _B\tau ^21`$.

### B Case of asymmetric state preparation noise

In the above purification protocol, we need classical communication (CC) to confirm that the measurement outcomes of the two sides are the same, and during this CC, we implicitly assume that the storage noise for the cavity modes is negligible. In fact, that the storage noise during CC is much smaller than the transmission noise is a common assumption made in all the entanglement purification schemes which need the help of repeated CCs . If we also make this assumption for continuous variable systems, there exists a simple purification protocol to generate maximally entangled states. We put the NOPA setup on the A side. After creation of ideal squeezed vacuum lights, we directly couple one output light of the NOPA to the cavity on side A without noisy propagation; and the other output of the NOPA is sent to the remote side B, through a long distance noisy transmission. This configuration of the setup is equivalent to setting the transmission loss rate $`\eta _A0`$ so that $`\eta _A^{}\eta _0/\left(\kappa _c\tau \right)`$. Note that the NOPA cavity loss rate $`\eta _0`$ is normally much smaller than the output coupling rate $`\kappa _c`$, so the total loss rate $`\eta _A^{}`$ can be much smaller than $`\eta _B^{}`$ in this case. The purification protocol now is exactly the same as that described in the previous case. We note that the component of the mixed density operator which is kept the projection $`P_A^{\left(j\right)}P_B^{\left(j\right)}`$ should subject to the same times of quantum jumps on each side A and B. We want this component is a maximally entangled state. This requires that the total probability for A and B to be subjected to the same nonzero number of quantum jumps should be very small. From Eq. (30), this total probability is always smaller than $`m\overline{n}\eta _A^{}\tau `$, no matter how large the transmission loss $`\eta _B\tau `$ is. So the working condition of the protocol in the asymmetric transmission noise case is

$$m\overline{n}\eta _0/\kappa _c1.$$
(35)
The transmission loss $`\eta _B\tau `$ can be above one. The probability of success for obtaining the maximally entangled state $`|j_{\left(A_iB_i\right\}}`$ is also given by Eq. (32).

Before concluding this section, we remark that for continuous variable systems, the information carrier is normally light, and the assumption of storage with a very small loss rate is typically unrealistic. It is interesting to note that recently there have been proposals to store light in internal states of an atomic ensemble . If this turns out to be possible, the storage time for light can be greatly increased. Anyway, as was pointed out in , this purification method is in fact not essentially hampered by the difficulty to store light, since there is a simple posterior confirmation method to circumvent the storage problem. Note that the purpose to distill maximally entangled states is to directly apply them in some quantum communication protocol, such as in quantum cryptography or in quantum teleportation. So we can modify the above purification protocol by the following procedure: right after the cavity A attains its steady state, we make a QND measurement of the total excitation number on side A and get a measurement result $`j_A`$. Then we do not store the outcome state on side A, but immediately use it (e.g., perform the corresponding measurement as required by a quantum cryptography protocol). During this process, the modes $`B_i`$ are being sent to the distant side B, and when they arrive, we make another QND measurement of the total excitation number of the modes $`B_i`$ and get a outcome $`j_B`$. The resulting state on side B can be directly used (for quantum cryptography for instance) if $`j_A=j_B,`$ and discarded otherwise. By this method, we formally get maximally entangled states through posterior confirmation, and at the same time we need not store the modes on both sides.

## V QND measurements of the total photon number of several cavities

The QND measurement of the total photon number plays a critical role in our entanglement purification protocol. There have been some proposals for making a QND measurement of the photon number in a single cavity , such as letting some atoms pass through the cavity, and measuring the internal or external degrees of freedom of the atoms . In this section, we propose a purely optical scheme for making a QND measurement of the total photon number contained in several cavities. The different optical modes interact with each other through cross phase modulation induced by a Kerr medium, and we use cavities to enhance this kind of interaction. As an illustrative example, in the following we will show how to measure the total photon number of two cavities. Extension of this scheme to include several cavities is straightforward.

The schematic setup is depicted in Fig. 5. We want to make a QND measurement of the total photon number $`n_1+n_2`$ contained in the good cavities I and II, whose damping rate $`\kappa `$ is assumed to be very small. The cavities I and II, each with a Kerr type medium inside, are put respectively in a bigger ring cavity. The two ring cavities are assumed to damp at the same rate $`\gamma `$, and $`\gamma \kappa `$. A strong coherent light $`b_{i1}`$ is incident on the first ring cavity, whose output $`b_{o1}`$ is directed to the second ring cavity. The output $`b_{o2}`$ of the second ring cavity is continuously observed through homodyne detection, and we will show that under some realistic conditions, this detection gives a QND measurement of the total photon number operator $`n_1+n_2=a_1^{}a_1+a_2^{}a_2`$.

The measurement model depicted in Fig. 5 is an example of a cascaded quantum system .The incident light $`b_{i1}`$ can be expressed as

$$b_{i1}=b_{i1}^{}+g\sqrt{\gamma },$$
(36)
where $`g\sqrt{\gamma }`$ is a constant driving field, and $`b_{i1}^{^{}}`$ is the standard vacuum white noise, satisfying

$`b_{i1}^{}\left(t\right)b_{i1}^{}\left(t^{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (37)
$`b_{i1}^{}\left(t\right)b_{i1}^{}\left(t^{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\delta \left(tt^{}\right).`$ ()
The Hamiltonian for the Kerr medium is assumed to be

$$H_i=\mathrm{}\chi n_ib_i^{}b_i,\text{ }\left(i=1,2\right),$$
(38)
where $`b_1`$ and $`b_2`$ are the annihilation operators for the ring cavity modes, and $`\chi `$ is the cross-phase modulation coefficient. The self-phase modulation effects will be discussed in the next section and shown to be negligible under some realistic conditions. In the rotating frame, the Langevin equations describing the dynamics in the two ring cavities have the form

$`\underset{1}{\overset{.}{b}}`$ $`=`$ $`i\chi n_1b_1{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{2}}b_1\sqrt{\gamma }b_{i1}^{}g\gamma ,`$ (39)
$`\underset{2}{\overset{.}{b}}`$ $`=`$ $`i\chi n_2b_2{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{2}}b_2\sqrt{\gamma }b_{i2}`$ ()
The boundary conditions for the two ring cavities are described by

$`b_{i2}`$ $`=`$ $`b_{o1}=b_{i1}^{}+g\sqrt{\gamma }+\sqrt{\gamma }b_1,`$ (40)
$`b_{o2}`$ $`=`$ $`b_{i2}+\sqrt{\gamma }b_2.`$ ()
Assume $`\gamma \chi n_i,`$ $`\left(i=1,2\right)`$, and we take adiabatic elimination, i.e., let $`\underset{1}{\overset{.}{b}}=\underset{2}{\overset{.}{b}}=0`$ in Eq. (38), obtaining

$`b_1`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\left(g\gamma +\sqrt{\gamma }b_{i1}^{}\right)}{\gamma }}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{2i\chi n_1}{\gamma }}\right),`$ (41)
$`b_2`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\left(g\gamma +\sqrt{\gamma }b_{i1}^{}\right)}{\gamma }}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{4i\chi n_1}{\gamma }}{\displaystyle \frac{2i\chi n_2}{\gamma }}\right)`$ ()
Substituting the above result into Eq. (39), the final output field $`b_{o2}`$ is expressed as

$$b_{o2}\frac{4ig\chi }{\sqrt{\gamma }}\left(n_1+n_2\right)+b_{i1}^{}+g\sqrt{\gamma }.$$
(42)
Now we measure the $`X`$-component of the quadrature phase amplitudes of the output field $`b_{o2}`$ through a homodyne detection. The phase of the driving field $`g`$ is set according to $`g=i\left|g\right|`$. Suppose $`T`$ is the measuring time. What we really get is the integrated photon current over time $`T`$, which, divided by $`T,`$ corresponds to the following measuring operator

$`X_T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T}}{\displaystyle _0^T}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[b_{o2}\left(t\right)+b_{o2}^{}\left(t\right)\right]𝑑t`$ (43)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\sqrt{2}\left|g\right|\chi }{\sqrt{\gamma }}}\left(n_1+n_2\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{T}}}X_T^{\left(b\right)},`$ ()
where $`X_T^{\left(b\right)}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(b_T+b_T^{}\right)`$, and $`b_T`$, satisfying $`[b_T,b_T^{}]=1`$, is defined by

$$b_T=\frac{1}{\sqrt{T}}_0^Tb_{i1}^{}\left(t\right)𝑑t.$$
(44)
From Eq. (36), it follows that the defined mode $`b_T`$ is in a vacuum state. So the first term of the right hand side of Eq. (42) represents the signal which is proportional to $`n_1+n_2`$, and the second term represents the contribution of the vacuum noise. The distinguishability of this measurement is given by

$$\delta n=\frac{\sqrt{\gamma }}{8\left|g\right|\chi \sqrt{T}}.$$
(45)
If $`\delta n<1`$, i.e., if the measuring time

$$T>\frac{\gamma }{64\left|g\right|^2\chi ^2},$$
(46)
we perform an effective measurement of the total number operator $`n_1+n_2`$. During the measuring time $`T`$, the loss of the two cavities I and II should be negligible, which requires

$$\kappa n_iT<1,\text{ }\left(i=1,2\right)$$
(47)
Under this condition, $`n_1+n_2`$ is approximately a conserved observable, and we realize a QND measurement of the total photon number operator. The measurement projects the field in the cavities I and II to one of the eigenstates of $`n_1+n_2`$. Eqs. (45) and (46), combined together, determine the suitable choice for the measuring time.

## VI Influence of imperfections in the QND measurement

We have shown how to perform a QND measurement of the total photon number. The scheme described above works under ideal conditions. For a real experiment, there are always many imperfections which should be considered. For example, the phase of the driving field may be unstable, and has a small variance; the damping rates and the cross phase modulation coefficients for different ring cavities may not be exactly the same; the Kerr media and the mirrors may absorb some light; self-phase modulation effects caused by the Kerr media may have some influence on the resulting state; there may be some loss of light from the first ring cavity to the second ring cavity; the efficiency of the detector is not unity. Of course, to realize a QND measurement of the total photon number, all the imperfections must be small. But the important question is how small these imperfections should be. In this section, we will deduce quantitative requirements for all the imperfections listed above. These calculations may be helpful for a future real experiment. We will consider these imperfections one by one.

### A Phase instability of the driving field

Assume that the phase of the driving field $`g\sqrt{\gamma }`$ has a small variance $`\delta `$, i.e., $`g`$ is expressed as $`g=i\left|g\right|e^{i\delta }`$. Then, Eq. (42) is replaced by

$$X_T\frac{4\sqrt{2}\left|g\right|\chi }{\sqrt{\gamma }}\left(n_1+n_2\right)+\frac{1}{\sqrt{T}}X_T^{\left(b\right)}\sqrt{2}\left|g\right|\delta \sqrt{\gamma },$$
(48)
The last term of Eq. (47) represents the noise due to the phase instability of the driving field. It should be negligible compared with the signal, which requires

$$\delta <\frac{4\chi }{\gamma }.$$
(49)
On the other hand, we know that the squared phase variance $`\delta ^2`$ increases linearly with time, i.e. $`\delta ^2=\delta _tt`$, where $`\delta _t`$ is the increasing rate. The measuring time $`T`$ is bounded from below by Eq. (45), so the increasing rate of the phase instability of the driving field is required to satisfy

$$\delta _t<\frac{1024\left|g\right|^2\chi ^4}{\gamma ^3}.$$
(50)
Eq. (49) suggests it is easier to meet the requirement imposed by the phase instability with a strong driving field and a large cross phase modulation coefficient.

### B Imbalance between the ring cavities

In the previous section, we assumed that the damping rates and the cross phase modulation coefficients are exactly the same for the two ring cavities. This may be impossible in a real experiment. Here we calculate the largest allowed imbalance between the two ring cavities. The damping rates and the cross phase modulation coefficients for the ring cavities are denoted by $`\gamma _1,`$ $`\gamma _2`$ and $`\chi _1,`$ $`\chi _2`$, respectively. The Langevin equations (38) and the boundary conditions (39) are replaced respectively by the following equations

$`\underset{1}{\overset{.}{b}}`$ $`=`$ $`i\chi _1n_1b_1{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _1}{2}}b_1\sqrt{\gamma _1}b_{i1}^{}g\gamma _1,`$ (51)
$`\underset{2}{\overset{.}{b}}`$ $`=`$ $`i\chi _2n_2b_2{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _2}{2}}b_2\sqrt{\gamma _2}b_{i2}`$ ()
$`b_{i2}`$ $`=`$ $`b_{o1}=b_{i1}^{}+g\sqrt{\gamma _1}+\sqrt{\gamma _1}b_1,`$ (52)
$`b_{o2}`$ $`=`$ $`b_{i2}+\sqrt{\gamma _2}b_2.`$ ()
The final measured observable is expressed as

$$X_T\frac{4\sqrt{2}\left|g\right|\chi _1}{\sqrt{\gamma _1}}\left(n_1+n_2\right)+\frac{1}{\sqrt{T}}X_T^{\left(b\right)}+4\sqrt{2}\left|g\right|\sqrt{\gamma _1}\left(\frac{\chi _2}{\gamma _2}\frac{\chi _1}{\gamma _1}\right)n_2,$$
(53)
The last term of Eq. (52) represents the noise due to the unbalance between the ring cavities, which should be negligible compared with the signal, yielding

$$\left|\frac{\chi _2\gamma _1}{\chi _1\gamma _2}1\right|<\frac{1}{n_2}.$$
(54)
### C Absorption and leakage of the light

Light absorption by mirrors and Kerr media and light leakage through other mirrors of the ring cavities can be described by the same Langevin equation, which has the form

$`\underset{1}{\overset{.}{b}}`$ $`=`$ $`i\chi n_1b_1{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{2}}b_1\sqrt{\gamma }b_{i1}^{}g\gamma {\displaystyle \frac{\beta _1}{2}}b_1\sqrt{\beta _1}c_{i1},`$ (55)
$`\underset{2}{\overset{.}{b}}`$ $`=`$ $`i\chi n_2b_2{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{2}}b_2\sqrt{\gamma }b_{i2}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _2}{2}}b_2\sqrt{\beta _2}c_{i2},`$ ()
where $`\beta _1`$ and $`\beta _2`$ are the light leakage (or absorption) rates of the first and second ring cavities, respectively, and $`c_{i1}`$ and $`c_{i2}`$ are the standard vacuum inputs. The boundary conditions for the ring cavities are still described by Eq. (39). The leaked (or absorbed) light fields $`c_{o1}`$ and $`c_{o2}`$ are expressed as

$$c_{o\alpha }=c_{i\alpha }+\sqrt{\beta _\alpha }b_\alpha ,\text{ }\left(\alpha =1,2\right).$$
(56)
The leakage (or absorption) of light may have two types of effects: First, it may destroy the balance between the two ring cavities; and second, the leaked light (55) may carry some information about $`n_1`$ (or $`n_2`$). Any information about $`n_1`$ (or $`n_2`$) will destroy the superposition of the different eigenstates of $`n_1`$ (or $`n_2`$), and thus lead to decoherence of the eigenstate of $`n_1+n_2`$ (Note that a eigenstate of $`n_1+n_2`$ is normally a superposition of the different eigenstates of $`n_1`$ (or $`n_2`$)). So we require that the information about $`n_1`$ (or $`n_2`$) carried by the leaked light should be completely masked by the vacuum noise. This is equivalent to require that the decoherence of the eigenstate of $`n_1+n_2`$ caused by the light leakage is negligible. To consider the first effect of the light leakage, we calculate the measured observable $`X_T`$, and find it has the form

$$X_T\frac{4\sqrt{2}\left|g\right|\chi }{\sqrt{\gamma }}\left(n_1+n_2\right)+\frac{1}{\sqrt{T}}X_T^{\left(b\right)}+\frac{4\sqrt{2}\left|g\right|\chi }{\sqrt{\gamma }}\left(\frac{\beta _2^2}{\gamma ^2}\frac{\beta _1^2}{\gamma ^2}\right)n_2,$$
(57)
The last term of Eq. (56) should be negligible compared with the signal, which requires

$$\left|\beta _2^2\beta _1^2\right|<\frac{\gamma ^2}{n_2}.$$
(58)
To consider the decoherence effect of the light leakage, we define a similar measuring operator $`X_T^{\left(\alpha \right)}`$ for the leaked light (55)

$`X_T^{\left(\alpha \right)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T}}{\displaystyle _0^T}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[c_{o\alpha }\left(t\right)+c_{o\alpha }^{}\left(t\right)\right]𝑑t`$ (59)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\sqrt{2}\left|g\right|\chi \sqrt{\beta _\alpha }\left(\alpha 1\right)}{\gamma }}\left(n_1+n_2\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{T}}}X_T^{\left(c_\alpha \right)}`$ (60)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{4\sqrt{2}\left|g\right|\chi \sqrt{\beta _\alpha }}{\gamma }}n_\alpha ,\text{ }\left(\alpha =1,2\right),`$
where $`X_T^{\left(c_\alpha \right)}`$, similar to $`X_T^{\left(b\right)}`$ defined below Eq. (42), are standard vacuum noise terms. The last term of Eq. (58) bears some information about $`n_\alpha `$, which should be completely masked by the vacuum noise term to make the decoherence effect negligible. This condition requires

$$\frac{4\sqrt{2}\left|g\right|\chi n_\alpha }{\gamma }\sqrt{\beta _\alpha }<\frac{1}{\sqrt{2T}}.$$
(61)
On the other hand, the measuring time $`T`$ is bounded from below by Eq. (45), which, combined with Eq. (59), yields the following requirement for the leakage rates

$$\beta _\alpha <\frac{\gamma }{n_\alpha ^2},\text{ }\left(\alpha =1,2\right).$$
(61)
Obviously, this is a much stronger requirement than that given by Eq. (57).

We should mention that there is another kind of absorption by the Kerr medium, the absorption rate of which is proportional to the cavity photon number $`n_\alpha `$. This kind of absorption, usually termed two-photon absorption, cannot be described by Eq. (54). To incorporate the two-photon absorption, we add an imaginary part to the cross phase modulation coefficient $`\chi `$, i.e., $`\chi `$ is replaced by $`\chi +i\chi _i`$, where $`\chi _i`$ describes the two-photon absorption rate. The two-photon absorption should be negligible compared with the cross Kerr interaction, which requires $`\chi _i<\frac{\chi }{n_\alpha },`$ $`\left(\alpha =1,2\right).`$

### D Self-phase modulation effects

Normally, a Kerr medium also induces self-phase modulation effects. However, by a suitable choice of the resonance condition for the Kerr medium, the self-phase modulation effects can be made much smaller than the cross-phase modulation , then the self phase modulation interaction is basically negligible. Here, for completeness, we still calculate the influence of self-phase modulations. In fact, self-phase modulation of the ring cavity modes have no influence on the QND measurement. This modulation adds a term like $`i\chi _sb_i^{}b_ib_i`$ $`\left(i=1,2\right)`$ in the Langevin equation (38), where $`\chi _s`$ denotes the self-phase modulation coefficient for the ring cavity modes. We know that the ring cavity modes $`b_1`$ and $`b_2`$ are in steady states under adiabatic elimination, and to a good approximation $`b_i^{}b_i`$ can be replaced by $`b_i^{}b_i=4\left|g\right|^2`$. So the term $`i\chi _sb_i^{}b_ib_i`$ simply induces a constant phase shift for the output field $`b_{o2}`$, and it can be easily compensated by choosing the initial phase of the driving field $`g`$.

Self phase modulation of the cavity modes $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$ plays a more subtle role. First, it obviously has no influence on the QND measurement of $`n_1+n_2`$, but it influences the resulting state after the QND measurement. In the purification scheme for two entangled pairs (described in section III.A), if there is no self-phase modulation, the state after the QND measurement is given by Eq. (13); and if the self-phase modulation of the modes $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$ is considered, the modulation Hamiltonian $`\mathrm{}\chi _s^{}n_i^2`$ $`\left(i=1,2\right)`$, in which $`\chi _s^{}`$ is the corresponding self phase modulation coefficient, will bring the resulting state into

$$|j_{A_1A_2B_1B_2}^{}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+j}}\stackrel{j}{\underset{n=0}{}}e^{i\chi _s^{}t\left[n^2+\left(jn\right)^2\right]}|n,jn_{A_1A_2}|n,jn_{B_1B_2},$$
(62)
where $`t`$ is the interaction time for the self phase modulation. It is important to note that the state (61) is still a maximally entangled state with entanglement $`\mathrm{log}\left(j+1\right)`$. In this sense, self-phase modulation effects have no influence on the entanglement purification, though the resulting state is changed.

### E Imperfect coupling from the first ring cavity to the second ring cavity

If the coupling between the two ring cavities is not perfect, the relation $`b_{i2}=b_{o1}`$ is not valid any more, and should be replaced by

$`b_{i2}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\mu }b_{o1}+\sqrt{1\mu }d_i,`$ (63)
$`d_o`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\mu }d_i+\sqrt{1\mu }b_{o1},`$ ()
where $`d_i`$ is the standard vacuum white noise, and $`d_o`$ represents the leaked light in the imperfect coupling. The quantity $`\mu `$ describes the coupling efficiency. This kind of imperfection is very similar to the light leakage (or absorption) described in subsection VI.C. The difference is that the imperfect coupling (62) does not cause any unbalance between the two ring cavities. The only restriction is that the decoherence effect induced by it should be negligible, which requires

$$\mu >1\frac{1}{n_1^2}.$$
(64)
Eq. (63) suggests that loss of light from the first to the second ring cavity should be very small.

### F Detector inefficiency

The detector efficiency of course cannot attain $`1`$. For a detector with efficiency $`\nu `$, the real measured field $`b_{o2}^{}`$ has the following relation with the output of the second ring cavity

$$b_{o2}^{}=\sqrt{\nu }b_{o2}+\sqrt{1\nu }e_i,$$
(65)
where $`e_i`$ is the standard vacuum white noise. This imperfection is similar to the imperfect coupling considered in the previous subsection. But now the leaked light depends only on the operator sum $`n_1+n_2`$, and carries no information about the single cavity photon number $`n_1`$, so it does not induce any decoherence. The only role played by the detector inefficiency is that it decreases the signal by a factor $`\sqrt{\nu }`$, so Eq. (45) on the restriction of the measuring time is now replaced by

$$T>\frac{\gamma }{64\nu \left|g\right|^2\chi ^2},$$
(66)
Obviously, the detector inefficiency has no important influence on this QND measurement scheme.

## VII Summary and discussion

In summary, we have given a detailed description of the purification protocol which generates maximally entangled states in a finite dimensional Hilbert space from two-mode squeezed states or from realistic Gaussian continuous entangled states. The nonlocal Gaussian continuous entangled states are generated by feeding two distant cavities with the outputs of the NOPA. The purification operation is based on a local QND measurement of the total photon number contained in several cavities. We have extensively analyzed a cavity scheme to do this QND measurement, and have deduced its working condition. Furthermore, we have discussed many imperfections existing in a real experiment, and deduced quantitative requirements for the relevant experimental parameters. In Tab. 1, we summarize the working conditions for the collective QND measurement, including the requirements for many types of imperfections.

To realize the QND measurement, basically we need high finesse optical cavities and strong cross Kerr interaction media. A good example for the strong cross Kerr interaction is provided by the resonantly enhanced Kerr nonlinearity, which has been predicted theoretically  and demonstrated in recent experiments . In those works, the Kerr medium is a low density cold trapped atomic gas, whose relevant energy level structure is represented by the four-state diagram shown in Fig. 6 with $`|1`$ being the ground state. The ring cavity mode $`b_i`$ with frequency $`\omega _b`$ is assumed to be resonant with the $`|1|3`$ transition, and the cavity mode $`a_i`$ with frequency $`\omega _a`$ ($`\omega _a`$ is quite different from $`\omega _b`$) is coupled to the $`|2|4`$ transition, but with a large detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{42}`$. A nonperturbative classical coupling field with frequency $`\omega _c`$ resonant with the $`|2|3`$ transition creates an electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) for the cavity fields $`a_i`$ and $`b_i`$.

In this configuration, the one-photon absorption of the medium is eliminated due to quantum interference, and the cross Kerr nonlinearity is only limited by the two-photon absorption (the self Kerr nonlinearity is negligible provided that $`\left|\omega _a\omega _b\right|\mathrm{\Delta }_{42}`$). After adiabatically eliminating all the atomic levels, the cross phase modulation coefficient is given by

$$\chi \frac{3\left|g_{13}\right|^2\left|g_{24}\right|^2}{\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2\mathrm{\Delta }_{42}}n_{\text{atom}},$$
(67)
where $`g_{24}`$ and $`g_{13}`$ are the coupling coefficients between the atoms and the cavity modes $`a_i`$ and $`b_i`$, respectively, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c`$ denotes the Rabi frequency of the coupling field, and $`n_{\text{atom}}`$ is the total atom number contained in the cavity. The two-photon absorption rate $`\chi _i`$ is connected with $`\chi `$ by the relation $`\chi _i/\chi =\gamma _{42}/\mathrm{\Delta }_{42}`$, where $`2\gamma _{42}`$ is the spontaneous emission rate from level $`|4`$ to level $`|2`$. To justify the adiabatic elimination, one requires that $`\frac{\left|g_{13}\right|^2n_{\text{atom}}}{\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2}<1`$ . As an estimation, if one takes $`\frac{\left|g_{13}\right|^2n_{\text{atom}}}{\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2}0.2,`$ $`g_{24}/2\pi 10`$MHz, $`\gamma _{42}/2\pi 30`$MHz, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{42}10\gamma _{42}`$, the coefficient $`\chi `$ is about $`\chi /2\pi 0.2`$MHz, and the two-photon absorption rate $`\chi _i0.1\chi `$. This value of the cross phase modulation coefficient $`\chi `$ is not large enough to realize a single-photon turnstile device , but it is enough for performing QND measurements of the photon number. For example, if the mean photon number $`n_1=n_2=\mathrm{sinh}^2\left(r\right)1.4`$ with the squeezing parameter $`r1.0`$, we choose the decay rates $`\kappa /2\pi 4`$MHz and $`\gamma /2\pi 100`$MHz (these values for decay rates are obtainable in current experiments ), and let $`g50`$ (for a cavity with cross area $`S0.5\times 10^4`$cm<sup>2</sup>, $`g50`$ corresponds to a coherent driving light with intensity about $`10`$mWcm<sup>-2</sup>). With the above parameters, all the requirements listed in Tab. 1 can be satisfied if we choose the measuring time $`T8`$ns. Note that the light speed can be much reduced in the EIT medium , so it is possible to get a reduced cavity decay rate $`\kappa `$ with the same finesse mirrors, and then more favorable parameters can be given for the QND measurement. Note also that a large Kerr nonlinearity based on EIT can also be obtained in other systems, such as trapping a single atom in a high finesse cavity . So the example discussed here is not the unique choice.

We thank P. Grangier and S. Parkins for discussions. This work was supported by the Austrian Science Foundation, by the European TMR network Quantum Information, and by the Institute for Quantum Information. GG acknowledges support by the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung.