Observation of Spatial Quantum Correlations in the Macroscopic Regime

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the observation of spatial quantum correlations in bright twin-beams with over 10^8 photons, using a single-shot measurement technique that shows quantum noise reduction in the far-field, enabling real-time quantum imaging applications.

Contribution

It reports the first observation of spatial quantum correlations in bright, macroscopic twin-beams in a single shot, using an electron-multiplied CCD camera and four-wave mixing in rubidium.

Findings

Achieved about 2 dB of spatial quantum noise reduction.

Observed spatial quantum correlations in a single 1 μs pulse.

Demonstrated spatial squeezing over a large photon number range.

Abstract

Spatial quantum correlations in the transverse degree of freedom promise to enhance optical resolution, image detection, and quantum communications through parallel quantum information encoding. In particular, the ability to observe these spatial quantum correlations in a single shot will enable such enhancements in applications that require real time imaging, such as particle tracking and in-situ imaging of atomic systems. Here, we report on measurements in the far-field that show spatial quantum correlations in single images of bright twin-beams with $10^8$ photons in a 1~$\mu$s pulse using an electron-multiplying charge-coupled device camera. A four-wave mixing process in hot rubidium atoms is used to generate narrowband-bright pulsed twin-beams of light. Owing to momentum conservation in this process, the twin-beams are momentum correlated, which leads to spatial quantum correlations in the far field. We show around 2~dB of spatial quantum noise reduction with respect to the shot noise limit. The spatial squeezing is present over a large range of total number of photons in the pulsed twin-beams.