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arXiv:1803.04696 · Physical Review Letters

Experimental Time-Resolved Interference with Multiple Photons of Different Colors

Xu-Jie Wang, Bo Jing, Peng-Fei Sun, Chao-Wei Yang, Yong Hui Yu, Vincenzo Tamma, Xiao‐Hui Bao, Jian-Wei Pan

Published Aug 22, 2018• 37 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Interference of multiple photons via a linear-optical network has profound applications for quantum foundation, quantum metrology, and quantum computation. Particularly, a boson sampling experiment with a moderate number of photons becomes intractable even for the most powerful classical computers. Scaling up from small-scale experiments requires highly indistinguishable single photons, which may be prohibited for many physical systems. Here we report a time-resolved multiphoton interference experiment by using photons not overlapping in their frequency spectra from three atomic-ensemble quantum memories. Time-resolved measurement enables us to observe nonclassical multiphoton correlation landscapes, which agree well with theoretical calculations. Symmetries in the landscapes are identified to reflect symmetries of the optical network. Our experiment can be further extended to realize boson sampling with many photons and plenty of modes, which thus may provide a route towards quantum supremacy with nonidentical photons.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.121.080501

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Interference of multiple photons via a linear-optical network has profound applications for quantum foundation, quantum metrology, and quantum computation. Particularly, a boson sampling experiment with a moderate number of photons becomes intractable even for the most powerful classical computers. Scaling up from small-scale experiments requires highly indistinguishable single photons, which may be prohibited for many physical systems. Here we report a time-resolved multiphoton interference experiment by using photons not overlapping in their frequency spectra from three atomic-ensemble quantum memories. Time-resolved measurement enables us to observe nonclassical multiphoton correlation landscapes, which agree well with theoretical calculations. Symmetries in the landscapes are identified to reflect symmetries of the optical network. Our experiment can be further extended to realize boson sampling with many photons and plenty of modes, which thus may provide a route towards quantum supremacy with nonidentical photons.
Multiphoton quantum interference underpins fundamental tests of quantum mechanics and quantum technologies. Consequently, the detrimental effect of photon distinguishability in multiphoton interference experiments can be catastrophic. Here we employ correlation measurements in the photonic inner modes, time or frequency, to restore quantum interference between photons differing in their colors or injection times in arbitrary linear optical networks, without the need for additional filtering or postselection. Interestingly, we demonstrate how harnessing the multiphoton inner-mode quantum information enables us to infer information about symmetries of multiphoton networks and states and to observe arbitrary degrees of WWW-state entanglement between a small number of photons with a fixed interferometer. These results are therefore of profound interest for future applications of universal inner-mode-resolved linear optics across fundamental science and quantum technologies with photons with experimentally different spectral properties.
Multiphoton quantum interference underpins fundamental tests of quantum mechanics and quantum technologies. Consequently, the detrimental effect of photon distinguishability in multiphoton interference experiments can be catastrophic. Here, we employ correlation measurements in the photonic inner modes, time or frequency, to restore quantum interference between photons differing in their colors or injection times in arbitrary linear optical networks, without the need for additional filtering or post selection. Interestingly, we demonstrate how harnessing the multiphoton inner-mode quantum information enables to unravel symmetries of multiphoton networks and states and the generation of an entire class of multipartite entangled states with a fixed interferometer. These results are therefore of profound interest for future applications of universal inner-mode resolved linear optics across fundamental science and quantum technologies with photons with experimentally different spectral properties.
We demonstrate quantum interference of three photons that are distinguishable in time by resolving them in the conjugate parameter frequency. We show that the multiphoton interference pattern in our setup can be manipulated by tuning the relative delays between the photons, without the need for reconfiguring the optical network. Furthermore, we observe that the symmetries of our optical network and the spectral amplitude of the input photons are manifested in the interference pattern. We also demonstrate time-reversed Hong-Ou-Mandel-like interference in the spectral correlations using time-bin entangled photon pairs. By adding a time-varying dispersion using a phase modulator, our setup can be used to realize dynamically reconfigurable and scalable boson sampling in the time domain as well as frequency-resolved multiboson correlation sampling.
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 relying on only 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 the success of current schemes with probabilistic sources for a large number of single photons in each experimental sample. Remarkably, we show a boson sampling scheme in which the probability of success increases instead of decreasing with the number of input photons, eventually approaching a unit value even with nondeterministic sources. It is achieved by sampling measurements not only at the interferometer output but also over all the possible numbers of photons at each input port and, different from scattershot boson sampling, allowing a random number of occupied input ports from one experimental run to another. Therefore, these results provide an exciting route toward future demonstrations of quantum computational supremacy with scalable experimental resources.
Abstract Multiphoton interference is an essential phenomenon at the very heart not only of fundamental quantum optics and applications in quantum information processing and sensing but also of demonstrations of quantum computational supremacy in boson sampling experiments relying only on linear optical interferometers. However, scalable boson sampling experiments with either photon number states or squeezed states are challenged by the need to generate a large number of photons with fixed temporal and frequency spectra from one experimental run to another. Unfortunately, even the well-established standard multiplexing techniques employed to generate photons with fixed spectral properties are affected by the detrimental effects of losses, spectral distorsions and reduction in purity. Here, we employ sampling correlation measurements in the photonic inner modes, time and frequency, at the interferometer input and output to ensure the occurrence of multiphoton interference even with pure states of input photons with random spectral overlap from one sample to another. Indeed, by introducing a random multiplexing technique where photons are generated with random inner-mode parameters, it is possible to substantially enhance the probability to successfully generate samples and overcome the typical drawbacks in standard multiplexing. We also demonstrate the classical hardness of the resulting problem of scattershot multiboson correlation sampling based on this technique. Therefore, these results not only shed new light in the computational complexity of multiboson interference but also allow us to enhance the experimental scalability of boson sampling schemes. Furthermore, this research provides a new exciting route toward future demonstrations of quantum computational supremacy with scalable experimental resources as well as future applications in quantum information processing and sensing beyond boson sampling.
Multiphoton interference represents one of the key features in photonic platforms for quantum communication, quantum simulation, quantum computing and quantum sensing. Starting from the first two-photon experiment by Hong-Ou-Mandel [1], it has been shown that multiphoton interference lies at the heart of computational complexity in linear optical interferometers, the most notable example being provided by the Boson Sampling model [2]. This model corresponds to sampling from the evolution of n indistinguishable photons in a multimode linear network, and has been shown to be hard to simulate classicaly thus representing a promising route to experimentally reach the quantum advantage regime. It has been shown, however, that genuine multiparticle interference is necessary for high computational complexity. Hence, appropriate methods for detection of such feature should be developed since the complexity of problem prevents the application of trivial methods.