Efficient and flexible preparation of photonic NOON states in a superconducting system

Quantum Physics [Submitted on 18 Mar 2026] Efficient and flexible preparation of photonic NOON states in a superconducting system Dong-Sheng Li, Yi-Hao Kang, Zhi-Cheng Shi, Yang Xiao, Ye-Hong Chen, Yan Xia The NOON states play a critical role as physical resources in quantum information processing and quantum metrology, yet their preparation efficiency and applicability are often constrained by complicated operational procedures or the requirement for nonlinear interactions. In this paper, we propose an efficient protocol to generate the NOON states within two microwave cavities embedded in a superconducting system, assisted by an auxiliary five-level qudit. The state preparation is accomplished in three steps for an arbitrary photon number N by adjusting only external classical fields, while keeping the qudit-cavity coupling strengths and the qudit level spacings fixed. Based on parameters accessible in superconducting systems, numerical simulations show that the protocol achieves relatively high fidelity for the NOON states preparation even in the presence of parameter fluctuations and decoherence effects. Thus, this protocol may provide a practical approach for preparing the NOON states with current technology. Notably, since nonlinear interactions are not required, the protocol is flexible and has the potential to be applied across various physical systems. Comments: 14 pages, 12 figures Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2603.17253 [quant-ph]   (or arXiv:2603.17253v1 [quant-ph] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.17253 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Ye-Hong Chen Dr. [view email] [v1] Wed, 18 Mar 2026 01:21:37 UTC (2,474 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: quant-ph < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-03 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)