Experimental Scattershot Boson Sampling

TL;DR

This paper reports the first experimental implementation of Scattershot Boson Sampling using six photon sources and integrated photonic circuits, providing evidence of quantum advantage in computational tasks.

Contribution

It demonstrates the first experimental realization of Scattershot Boson Sampling with multiple photon sources on integrated circuits, advancing quantum computational supremacy.

Findings

Strong statistical evidence of correct quantum behavior

Successful integration of six photon-pair sources with photonic circuits

Significant step toward demonstrating quantum computational advantage

Abstract

Boson Sampling is a computational task strongly believed to be hard for classical computers, but efficiently solvable by orchestrated bosonic interference in a specialised quantum computer. Current experimental schemes, however, are still insufficient for a convincing demonstration of the advantage of quantum over classical computation. A new variation of this task, Scattershot Boson Sampling, leads to an exponential increase in speed of the quantum device, using a larger number of photon sources based on parametric downconversion. This is achieved by having multiple heralded single photons being sent, shot by shot, into different random input ports of the interferometer. Here we report the first Scattershot Boson Sampling experiments, where six different photon-pair sources are coupled to integrated photonic circuits. We employ recently proposed statistical tools to analyse our experimental data, providing strong evidence that our photonic quantum simulator works as expected. This approach represents an important leap toward a convincing experimental demonstration of the quantum computational supremacy.