# Fast simulation for multi-photon, atomic-ensemble quantum model of linear optical systems addressing the curse of dimensionality

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel simulation method for multi-photon quantum systems in linear optical setups, significantly reducing computational complexity and enabling detailed analysis of quantum phenomena like interference and entanglement.

## Contribution

The authors develop a decomposition technique for multi-photon evolution operators, addressing the curse of dimensionality in quantum optical simulations.

## Key findings

- Accurately simulates Hong-Ou-Mandel interference
- Reproduces Bell-CHSH inequality violations
- Provides visual insights into photon propagation

## Abstract

Photons are elementary particles of light in quantum mechanics, whose dynamics can be difficult to gain detailed insights, especially in complex systems. Simulation is a promising tool to resolve this issue, but it must address the curse of dimensionality, namely, that the number of bases increases exponentially in the number of photons. Here we mitigate this dimensionality scaling by focusing on optical systems composed of linear optical objects, modeled as an ensemble of two-level atoms. We decompose the time evolutionary operator on multiple photons into a group of time evolution operators acting on a single photon. Since the dimension of a single-photon time evolution operator is exponentially smaller than that of a multi-photon one in the number of photons, the decomposition enables the multi-photon simulations to be performed at a much lower computational cost. We apply this method to basic single- and multi-photon phenomena, such as Hong-Ou-Mandel interference and violation of the Bell-CHSH inequality, and confirm that the calculated properties are quantitatively comparable to the experimental results. Furthermore, our method visualizes the spatial propagation of photons hence provides insights that aid experiment designs for quantum-enabled technologies.