On-Demand Generation of Traveling Cat States Using a Parametric Oscillator

Abstract: We theoretically propose a method for on-demand generation of traveling Schr\"odinger cat states, namely, quantum superpositions of distinct coherent states of traveling fields. This method is based on deterministic generation of intracavity cat states using a Kerr-nonlinear parametric oscillator (KPO) via quantum adiabatic evolution. We show that the cat states generated inside a KPO can be released into an output mode by controlling the parametric pump amplitude dynamically. We further show that the quality of the traveling cat states can be improved by using a shortcut-to-adiabaticity technique.