It is shown that radiation pressure can be profitably used to entangle macroscopic oscillators like movable mirrors, using present technology. We prove a new sufficient criterion for entanglement and show that the achievable entanglement is robust against thermal noise. Its signature can be revealed using common optomechanical readout apparatus.

We investigate the possibility of realising effective quantum gates between two atoms in distant cavities coupled by an optical fibre. We show that highly reliable swap and entangling gates are achievable. We exactly study the stability of these gates in presence of imperfections in coupling strengths and interaction times and prove them to be robust. Moreover, we analyse the effect of spontaneous emission and losses and show that such gates are very promising in view of the high level of coherent control currently achievable in optical cavities.

By using a generalization of the optical tomography technique we describe the dynamics of a quantum system in terms of equations for a purely classical probability distribution which contains complete information about the system.Comment: 12 pages, LATEX,preprint of Camerino University, to appear in Phys.Lett.A (1996