Violations of Bell's inequality for Gaussian states with homodyne detection and nonlinear interactions

M. Paternostro, H. Jeong, T. C. Ralph

Published 2008-07-16, updated 2008-12-15Version 2

We show that homodyne measurements can be used to demonstrate violations of Bell's inequality with Gaussian states, when the local rotations used for these types of tests are implemented using nonlinear unitary operations. We reveal that the local structure of the Gaussian state under scrutiny is crucial in the performance of the test. The effects of finite detection efficiency is thoroughly studied and shown to only mildly affect the revelation of Bell violations. We speculate that our approach may be extended to other applications such as entanglement distillation where local operations are necessary elements besides quantum entanglement.