Multimode entanglement and telecloning in a noisy environment

We address generation, propagation and application of multipartite continuous variable entanglement in a noisy environment. In particular, we focus our attention on the multimode entangled states achievable by second order nonlinear crystals, {\em i.e.} coherent states of ${\rm SU}(m,1)$ group. The full inseparability in the ideal case is shown, whereas thresholds for separability are given for the tripartite case in the presence of noise. We then consider coherent states of ${\rm SU}(m,1)$ as support for a telecloning protocol, providing the first example of a completely asymmetric $1 \to m$ telecloning. We derive explicitly the optimal relation among the different fidelities of the clones. The effect of noise in the various stages of the protocol is taken into account, thus permitting its adaptive modifications to the noisy environment. In the optimized scheme the clones' fidelity remains maximal even in the presence of losses (in the absence of thermal noise), for propagation times that diverge as the number of modes increases, indicating that telecloning is a more effective way to distribute quantum information then direct transmission followed by local cloning.