Quantum Astrometry

Sven Herrmann, Michael Keach, Andrei Nomerotski, Anze Slosar, Paul Stankus, Stephen Vintskevich (BNL);

Eden Figueroa (Stony Brook University/BNL)

Thomas Jennewein (University of Waterloo)

Duncan England, Yingwen Zhang (NRC, Ottawa)

Peter Svihra (University of Manchester)

 

 

 

Observations using interferometers provide sensitivity to features of images on angular scales much smaller than any single telescope, on the order of Delta theta ~ l/b where b is the interferometric baseline.  Present-day optical interferometers are essentially classical, interfering single photons with themselves.  However, there is a new wave of interest in interferometry using multiple photons, whose mechanisms are inherently quantum mechanical, which offer the prospects increased baselines and finer resolutions among other advantages.  We will develop and implement recent ideas for quantum-assisted interferometry using the resource of entangled pairs, and specifically a two-photon amplitude technique aimed at improved precision in dynamic astrometry.

It was pointed out by Gottesman, Jennewein and Croke [1] in 2012 that optical interferometer baselines could be extended, without an optical connecting path, if a supply of entangled Bell states between the two stations could be provided. If these states could then be interfered locally at each station with an astronomical photon that has impinged on both stations, the outcomes at the two stations would be correlated in a way that is sensitive to the phase difference in the two paths of the photon, thus reproducing the action of an interferometer. Equivalently, this can be seen as using a Bell state measurement at one station to teleport the state of that station’s astronomical photon to the other station, and interfering it with its counterpart there.

In the Quantum Astrometry project we will study QIS techniques of two-photon interferometry which, in principle, could enable practically arbitrarily large synthesized apertures, opening completely new windows into astrophysical phenomena. We will experiment with several practical implementations of the technique to demonstrate how this can be deployed for cosmological and astronomical measurements derived from precise astrometry of stars and galaxies.

 

[1] Gottesman, Jennewein and Croke, “Longer-Baseline Telescopes Using Quantum Repeaters”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 070503 (2012).

 

 

 

 

Recent publications

Counting of Hong-Ou-Mandel Bunched Optical Photons Using a Fast Pixel Camera  , A.Nomerotski,   M.Keach,   P.Stankus,   P.Svihra, and   S.Vintskevich, Sensors 2020, 20, 3475; doi:10.3390/s20123475.

The uses of a silicon-pixel camera with verify good time resolution (∼nanosecond) for detecting multiple, bunched optical photons is explored. We present characteristics of the camera and describe experiments proving its counting capabilities. We use a spontaneous parametric down-conversion source to generate correlated photon pairs, and exploit the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference effect in a fiber-coupled beam splitter to bunch the pair onto the same output fiber. It is shown that the time and spatial resolution of the camera enables independent detection of two photons emerging simultaneously from a single spatial mode.

 

 

 

 

 

Multivariate Discrimination in Quantum Target Detection , P.Svihra, Y.Zhang, P.Hockett, S.Ferrante, B.Sussman, D.England,  and  A.Nomerotski,  arXiv:2005.00612, May 2020, submitted for publication in Applied Physics Letters.

 

We describe a simple multivariate technique of likelihood ratios for improved discrimination of signal and background in multi-dimensional quantum target detection. The technique combines two independent variables, time difference and summed energy, of a photon pair from the spontaneous parametric down-conversion source into an optimal discriminant. The discriminant performance was studied in experimental data and in Monte-Carlo modelling with clear improvement shown compared to previous techniques. As novel detectors become available, we expect this type of multivariate analysis to become increasingly important in multi-dimensional quantum optics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Multidimensional quantum-enhanced target detection via spectro-temporal correlation measurements , Y.Zhang, D.England, A.Nomerotski, P.Svihra, S.Ferrante,  P.Hockett,  and  B.Sussman,  Phys. Rev. A 101, 053808 (2020).

 

In this work we investigate quantum-enhanced target detection in the presence of large background noise using multidimensional quantum correlations between photon pairs generated through spontaneous parametric down-conversion. Until now similar experiments have only utilized one of the photon pairs’ many degrees of freedom such as temporal correlations and photon number correlations. Here, we utilized both temporal and spectral correlations of the photon pairs and achieved over an order of magnitude reduction to the background noise and in turn significant reduction to data acquisition time when compared to utilizing only temporal modes. We believe this work represents an important step in realizing a practical, real-time quantum-enhanced target detection system. The demonstrated technique will also be of importance in many other quantum sensing applications and quantum communications.

 

 

 

 

Imaging and time stamping of photons with nanosecond resolution in Timepix based optical cameras  A.Nomerotski,  Nuclear  Instruments  and  Methods  in  Physics  Research Section A, 937, 26 (2019).

 

This paper describes fast time-stamping cameras sensitive to optical photons and their applications.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other recent BNL QIS publications

 

High-Fidelity Simultaneous Detection of Trapped Ion Qubit Register, Liudmila A. Zhukas, Peter Svihra, Andrei Nomerotski, Boris B. Blinov, https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.12801, June 2020, submitted for publication to Phys.Rev.Letters.

 

Qubit state detection is an important part of a quantum computation. As number of qubits in a quantum register increases, it is necessary to maintain high fidelity detection to accurately measure the multi-qubit state. Here we present experimental demonstration of high-fidelity detection of a multi-qubit trapped ion register with single qubit detection fidelity of 0.99995(+3/-8) and 4-qubit state detection fidelity of 0.9991(+5/-15) using a novel single-photon-sensitive camera with fast data collection, excellent temporal and spatial resolution, and low instrumental crosstalk.

 

 

 

Spatial and temporal characterization of polarization entanglement Nomerotski, A.; Katramatos, D.; Stankus, P.; Svihra, P.; Cui, G.; Gera, S.; Flament, M.; Figueroa, E., International Journal of Quantum Information 2020, 18, 1941027; doi:10.1142/s0219749919410272.

 

 

We describe the full temporal and spatial characterization of polarization-entangled photons produced by Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversions using an intensified high-speed optical camera, Tpx3Cam. This novel technique allows for precise determination of Bell inequality parameters and for new characterization methods for the spatial distribution of entangled quantum information. We also discuss a technique to synchronize multiple cameras separated by vast distances, which will be required for a distributed quantum network.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fast camera spatial characterization of photonic polarization entanglement, Ianzano, C.; Svihra, P.; Flament, M.; Hardy, A.; Cui, G.; Nomerotski, A.; Figueroa, E., Fast camera spatial characterization of photonic polarization entanglement, Scientific Reports 2020, 10; doi:10.1038/s41598-020-62020-z.

 

 

Scalable technologies to characterize the performance of quantum devices are crucial to creating large quantum networks and quantum processing units. Chief among the resources of quantum information processing is entanglement. Here we describe the full temporal and spatial characterization of polarization-entangled photons produced by Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversions using an intensified high-speed optical camera, Tpx3Cam. This novel technique allows for precise determination of Bell inequality parameters with minimal technical overhead, and for new characterization methods for the spatial distribution of entangled quantum information. The fast-optical camera could lead to multiple applications in Quantum Information Science, opening new perspectives for the scalability of quantum experiments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quantum Networks For Open Science, T. Ndousse-Fetter et al., arXiv:1910.11658 [quant-ph], Oct 2019.

The United States Department of Energy convened the Quantum Networks for Open Science (QNOS) Workshop in September 2018. The workshop was primarily focused on quantum networks optimized for scientific applications with the expectation that the resulting quantum networks could be extended to lay the groundwork for a generalized network that will evolve into a quantum internet.