Quantum resolution limit of long-baseline imaging using distributed entanglement

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that distributed entanglement and spatial-mode sorting enable quantum-limited resolution in long-baseline astronomical imaging, surpassing classical limits and applicable to complex multi-telescope systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel entanglement-assisted receiver design that mimics multimode interferometry for quantum-limited imaging with multiple telescopes.

Findings

Achieves quantum-limited precision in estimating star separation.

Provides a blueprint for quantum-enhanced astronomical imaging systems.

Analyzes Fisher-information contributions of mode sorting and entanglement.

Abstract

It has been shown that shared entanglement between two telescope sites can in principle be used to localize a point source by mimicking the standard phase-scanning interferometer, but without physically bringing the light from the distant telescopes together. In this paper, we show that a receiver that employs spatial-mode sorting at each telescope site, combined with pre-shared entanglement and local quantum operations can be used to mimic the most general multimode interferometer acting on light collected from the telescopes. As an example application to a quantitative passive-imaging problem, we show that the quantum-limited precision of estimating the angular separation between two stars can be attained by an instantiation of the aforesaid entanglement based receiver. We discuss how this entanglement assisted strategy can be used to achieve the quantum-limited precision of any complex quantitative imaging task involving any number of telescopes. We provide a blueprint of this general receiver that involves quantum transduction of starlight into quantum memory banks and spatial mode sorters deployed at each telescope site, and measurements that include optical detection as well as qubit gates and measurements on the quantum memories. We discuss the relative Fisher-information contributions of local mode sorting at telescope sites vis-a-vis distributed entanglement-assisted interferometry, to the overall quantum-limited information about the scene, based on the ratio of the baseline distance to the individual telescope diameter.