Entanglement swapping with pure orbital angular momentum Bell-state analysis

We investigate a framework of an orbital angular momentum (OAM) entanglement swapping in a multi-dimensional Hilbert space with the spin angular momentum (SAM)-based orbital angular momentum (OAM) Bell-sate analysis. By the implementations of entanglement swapping with the SAM and OAM Bell-state measurements subsequently, the OAM entanglement states (qudits) are generated and then transferred between photons in multi-dimensional Hilbert space in a point-to-point fashion. In the proposed scheme, two pairs of the SAM-based OAM hybrid entanglement photons are deployed to conduct the successive SAM and OAM Bell-state measurements. It provides an alternative technique to transfer pure OAM Bell-states in qudits, which illustrates a possible experimental approach for devising a full repeater in a complex quantum computation network where entanglement swapping serves as a critical constituent. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.