Robust preparation of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger and W states of three distant atoms

Schemes to generate Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) and W states of three distant atoms are proposed in this paper. The schemes use the effects of quantum statistics of indistinguishable photons emitted by the atoms inside optical cavities. The advantages of the schemes are their robustness against detection inefficiency and asynchronous emission of the photons. Moreover, in Lamb-Dicke limit, the schemes do not require the simultaneous click of the detectors. This makes the schemes more realizable in experiments.