The Linear Optical Unambiguous Discrimination of Hyperentangled Bell States Assisted by Time Bin

A linear optical unambiguous discrimination of hyperentangled Bell states is proposed for two-photon systems entangled in both the polarization and momentum degrees of freedom (DOFs) assisted by time bin. This unambiguous discrimination scheme can completely identify 16 orthogonal hyperentangled Bell states using only linear optical elements, where the function of the auxiliary entangled Bell state is replaced by time bin. Moreover, the possibility of extending this scheme for distinguishing hyperentangled Bell states in n DOFs is discussed, and it shows that 2n+k+1 hyperentangled Bell states in n (n >= 2) DOFs can be distinguished with k (k更多