Mesoscopic entanglement of atomic ensembles through nonresonant stimulated Raman scattering

We propose a scheme of generating and verifying mesoscopic-level entanglement between two atomic ensembles using nonresonant stimulated Raman scattering. Entanglement can be generated by direct detection or balanced homodyne detection of the Stokes fields from the two cells after they interfere on a beam splitter. The entanglement of the collective atomic fields can be transferred to the anti-Stokes fields in a readout process. By measuring the operator moments of the anti-Stokes fields, we can verify the presence of entanglement. We model the effects of practical factors such as Stokes-field detector quantum efficiency and additive thermal noise in the entanglement generating process, and anti-Stokes-field losses in the entanglement verification process, and find achievable regimes in which entanglement can be verified at the levels of tens to hundreds of atomic excitations in the ensembles.