Applications of quantum technology often require fidelities to quantify performance. These provide a fundamental yardstick for the comparison of two quantum states. While this is straightforward in the case of pure states, it is much more subtle for the more general case of mixed quantum states often found in practice. A large number of different proposals exist. In this review, we summarize the required properties of a quantum fidelity measure, and compare them, to determine which properties each of the different measures has. We show that there are large classes of measures that satisfy all the required properties of a fidelity measure, just as there are many norms of Hilbert space operators, and many measures of entropy. We compare these fidelities, with detailed proofs of their properties. We also summarize briefly the applications of these measures in teleportation, quantum memories and quantum computers, quantum communications, and quantum phase-space simulations.

Following previous work, we distinguish between genuine $N$-partite entanglement and full $N$-partite inseparability. Accordingly, we derive criteria to detect genuine multipartite entanglement using continuous-variable (position and momentum) measurements. Our criteria are similar but different to those based on the van Loock–Furusawa inequalities, which detect full $N$-partite inseparability. We explain how the criteria can be used to detect the genuine $N$-partite entanglement of continuous variable states generated from squeezed and vacuum state inputs, including the continuous-variable Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state, with explicit predictions for up to $N=9$. This makes our work accessible to experiment. For $N=3$, we also present criteria for tripartite Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering. These criteria provide a means to demonstrate a genuine three-party EPR paradox, in which any single party is steerable by the remaining two parties.

We consider two systems $A$ and $B$ that share Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) steering correlations and study how these correlations will decay when each of the systems is independently coupled to a reservoir. EPR steering is a directional form of entanglement, and the measure of steering can change depending on whether system $A$ is steered by $B$, or vice versa. First, we examine the decay of the steering correlations of the two-mode squeezed state. We find that if system $B$ is coupled to a reservoir, then the decoherence of the steering of $A$ by $B$ is particularly marked, to the extent that there is a sudden death of steering after a finite time. We find a different directional effect if the reservoirs are thermally excited. Second, we study the decoherence of the steering of a Schrödinger cat state, modeled as the entangled state of a spin and harmonic oscillator, when the macroscopic system (the cat) is coupled to a reservoir.

A strategy for generating entanglement between two separated optomechanical oscillators is analyzed, using entangled radiation produced from down-conversion and stored in an initiating cavity. We show that the use of pulsed entanglement with optimally shaped temporal modes can efficiently transfer quantum entanglement into a mechanical mode, then remove it after a fixed waiting time for measurement. This protocol could provide new avenues for testing for bounds on decoherence in massive systems that are spatially separated, as originally suggested by Furry not long after the discussion by Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen and Schrödinger of entanglement.

We analyze a method for the creation, storage, and retrieval of optomechanical Schrödinger cat states, in which there is a quantum superposition of two distinct macroscopic states of a mechanical oscillator. In the quantum memory protocol, an optical cat state is first prepared in an optical cavity, then transferred to the mechanical mode, where it is stored and later retrieved using control fields. We carry out numerical simulations for the quantum memory protocol for optomechanical cat states using the positive-P phase space representation. This has a compact, positive representation for a cat state, thus allowing a probabilistic simulation of this highly nonclassical quantum system. It is essential to use importance sampling to carry out the simulation effectively. To verify the effectiveness of the cat-state quantum memory, we consider several cat-state signatures and show how they can be computed. We also investigate the effects of decoherence on a cat state by solving the standard master equation for a simplified model analytically, allowing us to compare with the numerical results. Focusing on the negativity of the Wigner function as a signature of the cat state, we evaluate analytically an upper bound on the time taken for the negativity to vanish, for a given temperature of the environment of the mechanical oscillator. We show consistency with the numerical methods. These provide exact solutions, allowing a full treatment of decoherence in an experiment that involves creating, storing, and retrieving mechanical cat states using temporally mode-matched input and output pulses. Our analysis treats the internal optical and mechanical modes of an optomechanical oscillator, and the complete set of input and output field modes which become entangled with the internal modes. The model includes decoherence due to thermal effects in the mechanical reservoirs, as well as optical and mechanical losses.