Concentration and purification scheme for two partially entangled photon pairs

An experimental scheme for concentrating entanglement in partially entangled photon pairs is proposed. In this scheme, two separated parties obtain one maximally entangled photon pair from two previously shared partially entangled photon pairs by local operations and classical communication. A practical realization of the proposed scheme is discussed, which uses imperfect photon detectors and spontaneous parametric down-conversion as a photon source. This scheme also works for purifying a class of mixed states.