Remote engineering of particle-like topologies to visualise entanglement dynamics

Abstract Skyrmions are a particle-like topology with a quantized skyrmion number, realized across condensed matter and photonic platforms alike. In quantum photonics, they constitute an emerging resource, promising robust quantum information encoding, so far realized as single-photon and bi-photon entangled states. Here we report the first visualization of tripartite entanglement dynamics through topological structure using spin-skyrmion entangled states, where the topology of a single photon is remotely controlled through the spin of its entangled partner. We visualize our tripartite state theoretically by introducing the notion of a topological Bloch sphere that completely captures the entanglement and topological features of the state. By leveraging this state, we realize the first quantum multiskyrmions, comprising multiple localized skyrmions within a single structure, that emulate signatures of their magnetic counterparts. We verify this experimentally and show that traversing our topological sphere reveals entanglement-driven particle-like motion of the localized topological structures. These dynamics unveil a physical manifestation of tripartite entanglement correlations which we illustrate by example of GHZ-like states, enabling a visualization of multiple Bell states encoded within our system. Our work opens exciting possibilities for quantum sensing by mapping complex quantum channel features onto topological observables of multipartite states and offers a promising avenue for harnessing quantum topologies for multi-level encoding quantum communication schemes.