No Arabic abstract
Channel position finding is the task of determining the location of a single target channel amongst an ensemble of background channels. It has many potential applications, including quantum sensing, quantum reading and quantum spectroscopy. In particular, it could allow for simple detection protocols to be extended to ones of measurement, for example, target ranging with quantum illumination. The use of quantum states and entanglement in such protocols have shown to yield quantum advantages over their optimal classical counterparts. Here we consider quantum channel position finding using sources specified by at most one single photon on average per mode, using the discrete variable formalism. By considering various quantum sources it is shown through the derivation of performance bounds that a quantum enhancement may be realised.
We perform experimental quantum polarimetry using a heralded single photon to analyze the optical activity of linearly polarized light traversing a chiral medium. Three kinds of estimators are considered to estimate the concentrations of sucrose solutions from measuring the rotation angle of the linear polarization of the output photons. Through repetition of independent and identical measurements performed for each individual scheme and different concentration sucrose solutions, we compare the estimation uncertainty among the three schemes. The results are also compared to classical benchmarks for which a coherent state of light is taken into account. The quantum enhancement in the estimation uncertainty is evaluated and the impact of experimental and technical imperfections is discussed. In this work, we lay out a route for future applications relying on quantum polarimetry.
Quantum imaging with undetected photons (QIUP) is a unique method of image acquisition where the photons illuminating the object are not detected. This method relies on quantum interference and spatial correlations between the twin photons to form an image. Here we present a detailed study of the resolution limits of position correlation enabled QIUP. We establish a quantitative relation between the spatial resolution and the twin photon position correlation in the spontaneous parametric down-conversion process (SPDC). Furthermore, we also quantitatively establish the roles that the wavelength of the undetected illumination field and the wavelength of the detected field play in the resolution. Like ghost imaging and unlike conventional imaging, the resolution limit imposed by the spatial correlation between twin photons in QIUP cannot be further improved by conventional optical techniques.
We report an experiment in which two-photon interference occurs between degenerate single photons that never meet. The two photons travel in opposite directions through our fibre-optic interferometer and interference occurs when the photons reach two different, spatially separated, 2-by-2 couplers at the same time. We show that this experiment is analogous to the conventional Franson-type entanglement experiment where the photons are entangled in position and time. We measure wavefunction overlaps for the two photons as high as 94 $pm$ 3%.
Quantum imaging with undetected photons (QIUP) is a unique imaging technique that does not require the detection of the light used for illuminating the object. The technique requires a correlated pair of photons. In the existing implementations of QIUP, the imaging is enabled by the momentum correlation between the twin photons. We investigate the complementary scenario in which the imaging is instead enabled by the position correlation between the two photons. We present a general theory and show that the properties of the images obtained in these two cases are significantly distinct.
We have distributed entangled photons directly through the atmosphere to a receiver station 7.8 km away over the city of Vienna, Austria at night. Detection of one photon from our entangled pairs constitutes a triggered single photon source from the sender. With no direct time-stable connection, the two stations found coincidence counts in the detection events by calculating the cross-correlation of locally-recorded time stamps shared over a public internet channel. For this experiment, our quantum channel was maintained for a total of 40 minutes during which time a coincidence lock found approximately 60000 coincident detection events. The polarization correlations in those events yielded a Bell parameter, S=2.27/pm0.019, which violates the CHSH-Bell inequality by 14 standard deviations. This result is promising for entanglement-based free-space quantum communication in high-density urban areas. It is also encouraging for optical quantum communication between ground stations and satellites since the length of our free-space link exceeds the atmospheric equivalent.