Interferometric Imaging Using Shared Quantum Entanglement

Open Access

Interferometric Imaging Using Shared Quantum Entanglement

Matthew R. Brown, Markus Allgaier, Valérian Thiel, John D. Monnier, Michael G. Raymer, and Brian J. Smith

Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 210801 – Published 21 November 2023

Abstract

Quantum entanglement-based imaging promises significantly increased resolution by extending the spatial separation of optical collection apertures used in very-long-baseline interferometry for astronomy and geodesy. We report a tabletop entanglement-based interferometric imaging technique that utilizes two entangled field modes serving as a phase reference between two apertures. The spatial distribution of a simulated thermal light source is determined by interfering light collected at each aperture with one of the entangled fields and performing joint measurements. This experiment demonstrates the ability of entanglement to implement interferometric imaging.

Received 15 December 2022
Revised 15 June 2023
Accepted 25 September 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.210801

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Nonclassical interferometry Quantum measurements Quantum sensing

Quantum Information, Science & TechnologyAtomic, Molecular & OpticalInterdisciplinary PhysicsGravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Matthew R. Brown ¹, Markus Allgaier¹, Valérian Thiel², John D. Monnier ³, Michael G. Raymer ¹, and Brian J. Smith^1,*

¹Department of Physics and Oregon Center for Optical, Molecular, and Quantum Science, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA
²PASQAL, 7 rue Léonard de Vinci, 91300 Massy, France
³Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA

^*Corresponding author: bjsmith@uoregon.edu

Article Text

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Supplemental Material

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References

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Issue

Vol. 131, Iss. 21 — 24 November 2023

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Images

Figure 1
Schematics of two approaches to interferometric imaging. Light from a distant incoherent source with intensity distribution $I (x)$ is collected by apertures with baseline $Δ y$ . (a) Direct interference combines the collected fields at a beam splitter with a known variable phase shift, $δ$ , and performs intensity measurements at the output. (b) Indirect interference combines the collected fields with reference fields (laser light or path-entangled single-photon state) followed by local measurements at each aperture. Correlations between measurement outcomes at each telescope yield the mutual coherence function of the fields collected by the two telescope stations.
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Figure 2
A titanium-sapphire (Ti:Sa) laser is separated into two paths by a beam splitter (BS). One path creates a single spectral-temporal-mode thermallike state by passing through a double slit (D) and then a time-varying scatterer (S). The scattered light is collected by fibers T1 and T2 after a BS. The other path undergoes second-harmonic generation in a BBO crystal followed by parametric down conversion in a KDP crystal. The generated photon pair is split at a polarizing BS (PBS); one output is used for heralding. The heralded photon is sent to a BS to generate the path-entangled reference state along two paths, with one path having a time-dependent length controlled by a PZT to introduce a phase shift, $δ (t)$ , driven by a signal generator (SG). Each path is coupled into single-mode fibers (S1 and S2), and combined with the fields collected by T1 and T2 in two fiber BSs (FBSs). The outputs of the FBSs are monitored by superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) and time taggers.
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Figure 3
(a), (b) show the measured magnitude of the complex visibility, $| \tilde{v} (Δ y) |$ , versus telescope separation, $Δ y$ , in mm and, $u$ , the number of wavelengths for double slits with 1 and 2 mm separation, respectively. The points are linearly interpolated to guide the eye. The black line is a model fit that takes parameters found from the fits shown in (c), (d) and adjusts scaling and offset. (c), (d) show the reconstructed autocorrelation of the source distribution for the 1 and 2 mm slit separations versus position in mm and arcmin. Experimental error bars are subsumed by the circular points used (see Supplemental Material [35] for details). The dashed black lines are the best model fits. Insets show the unnormalized source intensity distributions estimated from the model fit parameters.
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