Large baseline optical imaging assisted by single photons and linear quantum optics

TL;DR

This paper proposes a quantum-enhanced optical interferometry method that combines quantum metrology and networking to significantly improve the resolution of astronomical imaging using existing technology.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach that extends baseline lengths in optical telescopes through quantum techniques without needing quantum memories.

Findings

Achieves resolution improvements of about 10 microarcseconds.

Effective with low photon number stellar sources and high transmission losses.

Can be implemented with current quantum optical technology.

Abstract

In this work, we show that by combining quantum metrology and networking tools, it is possible to extend the baseline of an interferometric optical telescope and thus improve diffraction-limited imaging of point source positions. The quantum interferometer is based on single-photon sources, linear optical circuits, and efficient photon number counters. Surprisingly, with thermal (stellar) sources of low photon number per mode and high transmission losses across the baseline, the detected photon probability distribution still retains a large amount of Fisher information about the source position, allowing for a significant improvement in the resolution of positioning point sources, on the order of 10 {\mu}as. Our proposal can be implemented with current technology. In particular, our proposal does not require experimental optical quantum memories.