Boson sampling with random numbers of photons

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel boson sampling scheme where the success probability increases with the number of input photons, potentially enabling scalable quantum supremacy demonstrations despite non-deterministic photon sources.

Contribution

The authors propose a new boson sampling approach that increases success probability with input photons, contrasting with previous fixed-port schemes, advancing scalable quantum experiments.

Findings

Success probability approaches unity with increasing photons.

Sampling over both occupied ports and photons per port enhances scalability.

Potential pathway for quantum supremacy with non-deterministic sources.

Abstract

Multiphoton interference is at the very heart of quantum foundations and applications in quantum sensing and information processing. In particular, boson sampling experiments have the potential to demonstrate quantum computational supremacy while only relying on multiphoton interference in linear optical interferometers. However, even when photonic losses are negligible, scalable experiments are challenged by the rapid decrease of the probability of success of current schemes with probabilistic sources for a large number of single photons in each experimental sample. Remarkably, we show a novel boson sampling scheme where the probability of success increases instead of decreasing with the number of input photons eventually approaching a unit value even with non deterministic sources. This is achieved by sampling at the same time in the number of occupied input ports and the number of input photons per port, differently form previous schemes where the number of occupied ports is fixed at each experimental run. Therefore, these results provide a new exciting route toward future demonstrations of quantum computational supremacy with scalable experimental resources.