We propose a way to use optical tools from quantum imaging and quantum communication to search for physics beyond the standard model.Spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) is a commonly used source of entangled photons in which pump photons convert to a signal-idler pair.We propose to search for "dark-SPDC" (dSPDC) events in which a new dark-sector particle replaces the idler.Though it does not interact, the presence of a dark particle can be inferred by the properties of the signal photon.Examples of dark states include axionlike particles and dark photons.We show that the presence of an optical medium opens the phase space of the down-conversion process, or decay, which would be forbidden in a vacuum.Search schemes are proposed that employ optical imaging and/or spectroscopy of the signal photons.The signal rates in our proposal scales with the second power of the small coupling to new physics, as opposed to light-shining-through-wall experiments, the signal of which scales with coupling to the fourth power.We analyze the characteristics of the optical media needed to enhance dSPDC and estimate the rate.
We propose a way to use optical tools from quantum imaging and quantum communication to search for physics beyond the standard model.Spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) is a commonly used source of entangled photons in which pump photons convert to a signal-idler pair.We propose to search for "dark-SPDC" (dSPDC) events in which a new dark-sector particle replaces the idler.Though it does not interact, the presence of a dark particle can be inferred by the properties of the signal photon.Examples of dark states include axionlike particles and dark photons.We show that the presence of an optical medium opens the phase space of the down-conversion process, or decay, which would be forbidden in a vacuum.Search schemes are proposed that employ optical imaging and/or spectroscopy of the signal photons.The signal rates in our proposal scales with the second power of the small coupling to new physics, as opposed to light-shining-through-wall experiments, the signal of which scales with coupling to the fourth power.We analyze the characteristics of the optical media needed to enhance dSPDC and estimate the rate.
This paper presents a new optical system for detecting light signals associated with the change in incoming photon number. The system employs quantum correlation of photon pairs created via spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC). The signal, if present, will perturb the flux of the incident photon stream. The perturbed photon stream is first projected through a birefringent crystal where SPDC occurs, converting a single high-energy photon into a pair of low-energy photons. The photons in each pair eventually arrive at separate detectors. By examining the biphoton correlation using the probability distribution of the photons at the detectors, which varies depending on the displacement of the main “pump” photon stream and the change in the number of photons, the small optical displacement of the photon stream and its variance can be determined. The change in incident photon number, in other words, the presence of light signal does not influence the average of the measured optical displacement values. Nevertheless, the change in optical displacement measurement variance when the number of incident photons has changed detects the light signal. This optical setup enables the detection of light signals with low noise and remarkably high precision and sensitivity using quantum correlation. The proposed technique has potential application for axion-like particle search in experimental high energy physics.
Quantum spectroscopy and imaging with undetected idler photons have been demonstrated by measuring one-photon interference between the corresponding entangled signal fields from two spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) crystals. In this Report, we present a new quantum optical measurement scheme utilizing three SPDC crystals in a cascading arrangement; here, neither the detection of the idler photons which interact with materials of interest nor their conjugate signal photons which do not interact with the sample is required. The coherence of signal beams in a single photon W-type path-entangled state is induced and modulated by indistinguishabilities of the idler beams and crucially the quantum vacuum fields. As a result, the optical properties of materials or objects interacting with the idler beam from the first SPDC crystal can be measured by detecting second-order interference between the signal beams generated by the other two SPDC crystals further down the set-up. This gedankenexperiment illustrates the fundamental importance of vacuum fields in generating an optical tripartite entangled state and thus its crucial role in quantum optical measurements.
Spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) is one of the most important sources for entangled or correlated photon pairs, which are the foundation of the emerging fields of quantum-optical imaging and spectroscopy. Using periodically poled materials as an SPDC-source allows broad emission spectra in widely tunable wavelength ranges in an efficient and walk-off-free process. For applications that employ nonlinear interference setups, maximum interferometric contrast is only achieved when signal and idler modes are overlapped precisely in the second crystal. Thus, accurate knowledge of the spectral-angular characteristic of SPDC is crucial for designing such devices.
Abstract. The field of Quantum Imaging exploits the quantum nature of light and the intrinsic parallelism of optical signals to devise novel techniques for optical imaging and for parallel information processing at the quantum level (see [1] and references quoted therein). In this presentation, we will shortly discuss two topics in this area: the first is the so-called ghost imaging which, however, is not necessarily quantum; the second is the detection of faint amplitude objects with a sensitivity beyond the standard quantum limit, and in this case we are fully in the quantum domain. Both topics are related to the phenomenon of optical parametric down-conversion (PDC), in which a fraction of the pump photons of a laser beam, injected into a crystal with a quadratic non-linearity, are down-converted to a pair of signal and idler photons, with conservation of total energy and total momentum. A feature of paramount importance is that the signal and idler beams are spatially correlated both in the near field (position correlation) and in the far field (momentum correlation).The simultaneous presence of position and momentum correlation implies quantum entanglement, as it has been also observed experimentally [2]. 1. Ghost Imaging
Quantum imaging with undetected photons allows for imaging an object by detecting photons that never interacted with it, using the correlation between photon pairs generated in the process of spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) [1] . Through SPDC in a χ (2) material, a pump (P) photon of wavelength λ P can split into a pair of signal (S) and idler (I) photons, such that 1/ λ P = 1/ λ S + 1/ λ I . In such imaging schemes, the object’s optical properties at λ I , such as its absorption profile, can be inferred by only imaging the signal photons. Thus, one can image in challenging spectral ranges, such as mid-IR for λ I , using detectors in the visible for λ S [1] . In this scheme, the resolution is fundamentally diffraction-limited to the wavelength that interacts with the object, λ I [2] . We show that one can go beyond this diffraction limit by placing the object in the near-field of a subwavelength thin SPDC source, as shown schematically in Fig. 1(a) , through transferring the near-field information at λ I into propagating modes at λ S that can be detected in the far field. In this scheme, the resolution of imaging the object at λ I is determined by the detected signal wavelength λ S . As an application, we numerically demonstrate how two closely-spaced small scatterers at mid-IR can be resolved with a visible-range resolution.
One of the most surprising consequences of quantum mechanics is entanglement of two or more distance particles. The two-particle entangled state was mathematically formulated by Schrodinger. Based on this unusual quantum behavior, EPR defined their 'physical reality' and then asked the question: 'Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?' One may not appreciate EPR's criterion of physical reality and insist that 'no elementary quantum phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is a recorded phenomenon'. Optical spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) is the most effective mechanism to generate an EPR type entangled two-photon state. In SPDC, an optical beam, called the pump, is incident on a birefringent crystal. The pump is intense enough so that nonlinear effects lead to the conversion of pump photons into pairs of photons, historically called signal and idler. Technically, the SPDC is said to be type-1 or type-2, depending on whether the signal and idler beams have parallel or orthogonal polarization. The SPDC conversion efficiency is typically on the order of 10(exp -9) to 10(exp -11), depending on the SPDC nonlinear material. The signal and idler intensities are extremely low, only single photon detection devices can register them. The quantum entanglement nature of SPDC has been demonstrated in EPR-Bohm experiments and Bell's inequality measurements. The following two experiments were recently performed in our laboratory, which are more closely related to the original 1935 EPR gedankenezperiment. The first experiment is a two-photon optical imaging type experiment, which has been named 'ghost image' by the physics community. The signal and idler beams of SPDC are sent in different directions, so that the detection of the signal and idler photons can be performed by two distant photon counting detectors. An aperture object (mask) is placed in front of the signal photon detector and illuminated by the signal beam through a convex lens. Surprisingly, an image of this aperture is observed in the idler beam, by scanning the idler photon detector in the transverse plane of the idler beam, if we are sure that the idler photon detector 'catches' the 'twin brother' of the signal, which can be easily performed by a coincidence measurement. This effect is even more striking when we found that the object-lens-image relationship satisfies the Gaussian thin lens equation. The second experiment demonstrates two-photon 'ghost' interference-diffraction. The experimental set up is similar to the image experiment, except that rather than a lens and an aperture it is a Young's double-slit (or a single-slit) inserted into the path of the signal beam. We could not find any interference (or diffraction) pattern behind the slit. Surprisingly, an interference (or diffraction) pattern is observed when scanning the detector in the idler beam, if we are sure that the idler photon detector 'catches' the 'twin brother' of the signal.