Generating Fock-state superpositions from coherent states by selective measurement

Fock states and their superpositions are exotic test beds for nonclassical physics and valuable resources for quantum technologies. We provide a simple protocol for the quantum measurement to generate an arbitrary Fock state and certain superposed Fock states from a coherent state of a target resonator, without any carefully tailored driving. This conditional protocol can be efficiently constructed by a sequence of joint free evolution of the resonator and an ancillary qubit, which are coupled via a Jaynes-Cummings interaction, and projective measurements on the qubit. By properly choosing the duration of each evolution-measurement cycle and the initial state of the resonator, we can generate a desired Fock state $|n\ensuremath{\rangle}$ and a superposed Fock state $(|0\ensuremath{\rangle}+|n\ensuremath{\rangle})/\sqrt{2}, n\ensuremath{\sim}10$, with a fidelity over $99%$ in less than 30 measurements. Moreover, our protocol can be extended straightforwardly to the generation of a Bell-like state $(|00\ensuremath{\rangle}+|nn\ensuremath{\rangle})/\sqrt{2}$ with multiple excitations in a double-resonator system. We also calculate the outcome fidelity and the success probability of our protocol in the presence of decoherence.