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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)

Restoring Information from Sparse Single Photon Detection Events for Experiments in Quantum Optics

Laura Orphal‐Kobin, Gregor Pieplow, Alok Gokhale, Kilian Unterguggenberger, Tim Schröder

Published Jun 23, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The precise analysis and control of quantum systems are critical for assessing their potential in advanced quantum technologies. Many characterization methods and prospective quantum applications rely on the detection of single photons and are therefore often time-consuming and resource-intensive. In this work, we adapt a statistical Monte Carlo (MC) simulation method, originally used in astrophysics and high-energy physics [1], to retrieve information from undersampled experimental data.

DOI
10.1109/cleo/europe-eqec65582.2025.11109334

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The precise analysis and control of quantum systems are critical for assessing their potential in advanced quantum technologies. Many characterization methods and prospective quantum applications rely on the detection of single photons and are therefore often time-consuming and resource-intensive. In this work, we adapt a statistical Monte Carlo (MC) simulation method, originally used in astrophysics and high-energy physics [1], to retrieve information from undersampled experimental data.
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Quantum optics experiments, involving the measurement of low-probability photon events, are known to be extremely time-consuming. We present a methodology for accelerating such experiments using physically motivated ansatzes together with simple statistical learning techniques such as Bayesian maximum a posteriori estimation based on few-shot data. We show that it is possible to reconstruct time-dependent data using a small number of detected photons, allowing for fast estimates in under a minute and providing a one-to-two order of magnitude speed-up in data acquisition time. We test our approach using real experimental data to retrieve the second order intensity correlation function, G(2)(τ), as a function of time delay τ between detector counts, for thermal light as well as anti-bunched light emitted by a quantum dot driven by periodic laser pulses. The proposed methodology has a wide range of applicability and has the potential to impact the scientific discovery process across a multitude of domains.
Abstract Owing to physical orientations and birefringence effects, practical quantum information protocols utilizing optical polarization need to handle misalignment between preparation and measurement reference frames. For any such capable system, an important question is how many resources – for example, measured single photons – are needed to reliably achieve alignment precision sufficient for the desired quantum protocol. Here, we study the performance of a polarization-frame alignment scheme used in prior laboratory and field quantum key distribution (QKD) experiments by performing Monte Carlo numerical simulations. The scheme utilizes, to the extent possible, the same single-photon-level signals and measurements as for the QKD protocol being supported. Even with detector noise and imperfect sources, our analysis shows that only a small fraction of resources from the overall signal – a few hundred photon detections, in total – are required for good performance, restoring the state to better than 99% of its original quality.