The connection between the boson sampling problem in a linear optical interferometer with single photon sources and the computation of matrix permanents has recently brought a strong interest for quantum computing applications. In this work we explore the physics of N-order interference in terms of N-order correlation functions in a generic linear optical interferometer with both Fock states sources and thermal sources. We will show how also in this case the connection of such a problem with matrix permanents play a fundamental role.
The connection between the boson sampling problem in a linear optical interferometer with single photon sources and the computation of matrix permanents has recently brought a strong interest for quantum computing applications. In this work we explore the physics of N-order interference in terms of N-order correlation functions in a generic linear optical interferometer with both Fock states sources and thermal sources. We will show how also in this case the connection of such a problem with matrix permanents play a fundamental role.
The boson sampling problem has brought a lot of attention in the quantum information field because it is not efficiently solvable with a classical computer; nonetheless it can be implementable with linear optical interferometers with single-boson sources. Recently, we introduced a more general problem, the multi-boson correlation sampling problem, which allows to take advantage of the muti-mode spectral distribution of the bosonic sources together with time-correlated measurements in order to achieve a sampling not only over the output channels of the interferometer but also over the joint detection times. This problem was analyzed for both single-photon sources and thermal sources. In this work, we demonstrate that it is possible to use single qubit bosonic sources in order to sample not only in the described "space-time" degree of freedom but also over all the possible exponential number of multi-qubit output states.
We develop a general description of multiboson interferometry based on correlated measurements in arbitrary passive linear interferometers for multimode thermal sources with arbitrary spectral distributions. The multiorder correlation functions describing the multiboson detection probability rates can be expressed in terms of permanents of positive semidefinite matrices, depending on the interferometer evolution, the spectral distribution of the sources, and the times when the correlated measurements occur. The permanent structure of these multiorder probability rates is a manifestation of the underlying physics of multiboson interference and yields an interesting connection with the so-called boson sampling problem.
This thesis presents results under the topics of quantum correlations and quantum information processing using linear-optical networks. The first part of this thesis concerns with quantum correlations, specially in Gaussian states, which play a central role as resource in quantum protocols. The second part is about quantum information processing using linear-optical networks that are of great practical interest due to their simple physical realization. In the first part, we present a measurement-based method for verifying nonzero quantum discord, a measure of quantum correlations, in bipartite systems that can be used for both continuous and discrete-variable systems. Based on this method, we show that the only bipartite Gaussian states with zero quantum discord are product states. We also present a simple and efficient experimental method for verifying quantum correlations in Gaussian states using homodyne measurements. Moreover, we introduce an operational measure for quantifying quantum correlations in Gaussian states that is purely based on Gaussian measurements. We then illustrate the operational significance of the measure in terms of a Gaussian quantum protocol. In the second part, we present results on linear quantum-optics experiments, specifically boson sampling, an intermediate model of quantum computation that can be implemented using single-photon states, linear-optical networks, and photodetectors. We first present an efficient experimental method for characterization of linear-optical networks, which is essential for practical implementation of boson sampling. We show that using coherent states one can directly measure all the nontrivial phases and moduli of the matrix describing the network. Next, we consider the problem of boson sampling with Gaussian states. We derive a general formula for calculating the output photon-counting probabilities. We show that for input thermal states, sampling from the output probability distribution can be efficiently classically simulated. Using this, we find that permanents of positive-semidefinite Hermitian matrices can be approximated to within a multiplicative error in BPPNP. We also discuss boson sampling with squeezed vacuum states. Finally, we provide a sufficient condition for the efficient classical simulation of the general sampling problem using linear-quantum optics, which involves a multimode input quantum state to a linear-optical network and set of measurements at the output. This condition is based on the phase-space quasiprobability distributions, and suggests that negativity is a quantum resource. We apply this condition to implementations of boson sampling using single-photon or spontaneous parametric down-conversion sources. We show that above some threshold for loss and noise in the experiment, boson sampling is classically simulatable.
The non-classical interference undergone by multiple photons in passive, linear optical networks gives rise to a surprising computational power of such quantum systems. This is prominently highlighted by boson sampling, a scheme for quantum computation which relies solely on such multiphoton interference and omits the usage of more sophisticated techniques such as entangling gates or feed-forward control. Despite these limitations, it still allows to efficiently solve a class of computational problems which is intractable for classical computers. In this thesis, several open challenges on the way to an experimental realization of boson sampling are addressed. To that end, the idealized model for boson sampling is extended to account, for example, for inner degrees of freedom of the single-photon pulses or the probabilistic nature of single-photon sources. It is shown that the difficulties arising from these real-world effects can be overcome by suitably adapting existing boson sampling schemes. Additionally, the extended model for such interference is applied to reveal its intricate dependence on input state, evolution inside the interferometer, and the detection process. Finally, a novel description of SPDC in terms of temporal Bogoliubov transformations is provided, revealing new, intuitive insights into the temporal structure of photon correlations for such sources.
The progressive development of quantum technologies in many areas, ranging from investigation on foundamentals of quantum of mechanics to quantum information and computation, has increased the interest on those problems that can exhibit a quantum advantage. The Boson Sampling problem is a clear example where traditional computers fail in the task of sampling from the distribution of n indistinguishable photons after a propagation in a m-mode optical interferometer. In this context, in the absence of classical algorithms able to simulate efficiently multi-photon interference, the validation of Boson Sampling is still an open problem. Here we investigate a novel approach to Boson Sampling validation based on statistical properties of correlation functions. In particular we discuss its feasibility in actual proof-of-principle experiments. Furthermore we provide an extensive study of the physical resources required to validate experiments, investigating also the role of bosonic bunching in high-dimensional applications. Our investigation confirms the goodness of the validation protocol, paving the way to use this toolbox for the validation of Boson Sampling devices.
Boson sampling has attracted much interest as a simplified approach to implementing a subset of optical quantum computing. Boson sampling requires indistinguishable photons, but far fewer of them than universal optical quantum computing architectures. In reality, photons are never indistinguishable, and exhibit a rich spectral structure. Here we consider the operation of boson sampling with photons of arbitrary spectral structure and relate the sampling statistics of the device to matrix permanents. This sheds light on the computational complexity of different regimes of the photons' spectral characteristics, and provides very general results for the operation of linear optics interferometers in the presence of partially distinguishable photons. Our results apply to both the cases of spectrally resolving and nonspectrally resolving detectors.