Experimental signature of quantum Darwinism in photonic cluster states

Abstract

We report on an experimental assessment of the emergence of Quantum Darwinism (QD) from engineered open-system dynamics. We use a photonic hyperentangled source of graph states to address the effects that correlations among the elements of a multiparty environment have on the establishment of objective reality ensuing the quantum-to-classical transition. Besides embodying one of the first experimental efforts toward the characterization of QD, our work illustrates the nontrivial consequences that multipartite entanglement and, in turn, the possibility of having environment-to-system back-action have on the features of the QD framework.