Enhanced standoff sensing resolution using quantum illumination
Saikat Guha, Jeffrey H. Shapiro
备注：
This 4-page article is based on a contributed talk presented at the Tenth International Conference on Quantum Communication, Measurement and Computation (QCMC) 2010, in Brisbane, Australia (http://qcmc2010.org/). This article has been submitted for the proceedings volume of QCMC 2010. After it is published, it will be available at http://proceedings.aip.org/
Loss and noise quickly destroy quantum entanglement. Nevertheless, recent work has shown that a quadrature-entangled light source can reap a substantial performance advantage over all classical-state sources of the same average transmitter power in scenarios whose loss and noise makes them entanglement breaking, standoff target-detection being an example. In this paper, we make a first step in extending this quantum illumination paradigm to the optical imaging domain, viz., to obtain better spatial resolution for standoff optical sensing. Our canonical imaging scenario---restricted, for simplicity, to one transverse dimension---is taken to be that of resolving one versus two closely-spaced in-phase specular point targets. We show that an entangled-state transmitter, which uses continuous-wave-pumped spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC), achieves an error-probability exponent that exceeds that of all classical-state transmitters of the same average power. Using these error-exponent results, we find the ultimate spatial-resolution limits for coherent-state and SPDC imaging systems that use their respective quantum-optimal receivers, thus quantifying the latter's spatial-resolution advantage over the former. We also propose a structured optical receiver that is ideally capable of harnessing 3 dB (of the full 6 dB) gain in the error-probability exponent achievable by the SPDC transmitter and its quantum-optimal receiver.
Quantum-enhanced sensing has a goal of enhancing a parameter sensitivity with input quantum states, while quantum illumination has a goal of enhancing a target detection capability with input entangled states in a heavy noise environment. Here we propose a concatenation between quantum-enhanced sensing and quantum illumination that can take quantum advantage over the classical limit. First, phase sensing in an interferometry is connected to a target sensing via quantum Fisher information. Second, the target sensitivity is investigated in noisy quantum-enhanced sensing. Under the same input sta…
We propose a scheme for covert active sensing using floodlight illumination from a THz-bandwidth amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) source and heterodyne detection. We evaluate the quantum-estimation-theoretic performance limit of covert sensing, wherein a transmitter's attempt to sense a target phase is kept undetectable to a quantum-equipped passive adversary, by hiding the signal photons under the thermal noise floor. Despite the quantum state of each mode of the ASE source being mixed (thermal), and hence inferior compared to the pure coherent state of a laser mode, the thousand-times hi…
Superposition and entanglement, the quintessential characteristics of quantum physics, have been shown to provide communication, computation, and sensing capabilities that go beyond what classical physics will permit. It is natural, therefore, to explore their application to radar, despite the fact that decoherence---caused by the loss and noise encountered in radar sensing---destroys these fragile quantum properties. This paper tells the story of "quantum illumination", an entanglement-based approach to quantum radar, from its inception to its current understanding. Remarkably, despite loss a…
We consider the problem of estimating unknown transmittance $θ$ of a target bathed in thermal background light. As quantum estimation theory yields the fundamental limits, we employ the lossy thermal-noise bosonic channel model, which describes sensor-target interaction quantum mechanically in many practical active-illumination systems (e.g., using emissions at optical, microwave, or radio frequencies). We prove that quantum illumination using two-mode squeezed vacuum (TMSV) states asymptotically achieves minimal quantum Cramér-Rao bound (CRB) over all quantum states (not necessarily Gaussian)…
Quantum illumination is a quantum-optical sensing technique in which an entangled source is exploited to improve the detection of a low-reflectivity object that is immersed in a bright thermal background. Entangled sources between microwave and optical fields can be exploited to improve detection in microwave quantum illumination technique. We proposed a scheme to enhance the entanglement between the output fields of microwave and optical cavity by introducing optical parametric amplifier medium in cavity optomechanical system. We show that improving signal-to-noise ratio and decreasing error …
The problem of estimating multiple loss parameters of an optical system using the most general ancilla-assisted parallel strategy is solved under energy constraints. An upper bound on the quantum Fisher information matrix is derived assuming that the environment modes involved in the loss interaction can be accessed. Any pure-state probe that is number-diagonal in the modes interacting with the loss elements is shown to exactly achieve this upper bound even if the environment modes are inaccessible, as is usually the case in practice. We explain this surprising phenomenon, and show that measur…
Quantum illumination (QI) is a quantum sensing protocol mainly for target detection which uses entangled signal-idler photon pairs to enhance the detection efficiency of low-reflectivity objects immersed in thermal noisy environments. Especially, due to the naturally occurring background radiation, the photon emitted toward potential targets more appropriately lies in the microwave region. Here, we propose a hybrid quantum source based on cavity magnonics for microwave QI, where the medium that bridges the optical and the microwave modes is magnon, the quanta of spin wave. Within experimentall…
Quantum target detection is an emerging application that utilizes entanglement to enhance the sensing of the presence of an object. Although several experimental demonstrations for certain situations have been reported recently, the single-shot detection limit imposed by the Helstrom limit has not been reached because of the unknown optimum measurements. Here we report an experimental demonstration of quantum target detection, also known as quantum illumination, in the single-photon limit. In our experiment, one photon of the maximally entangled photon pair is employed as the probe signal and …
Quantum-enhanced, idler-free sensing protocol to measure the response of a target object to the frequency of a probe in a noisy and lossy scenario is proposed. In this protocol, a target with frequency-dependent reflectivity embedded in a thermal bath is considered. The aim is to estimate the parameter $λ= η(ω_2)-η(ω_1)$, since it contains relevant information for different problems. For this, a bi-frequency quantum state is employed as the resource, since it is necessary to capture the relevant information about the parameter. Computing the quantum Fisher information $H$ relative to the param…
Single-photon-avalanche diode (SPAD) arrays are essential tools in biophotonics, optical ranging and sensing and quantum optics. However, their small number of pixels, low quantum efficiency and small fill factor have so far hindered their use for practical imaging applications. Here, we demonstrate full-field entangled photon pair correlation imaging using a 100-kpixels SPAD camera. By measuring photon coincidences between more than 500 million pairs of positions, we retrieve the full point spread function of the imaging system and subsequently high-resolution images of target objects illumin…
Stochastic signal sensing with finite energy and dead time at the fundamental quantum limit
Chicago Quantum Institute, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago（芝加哥量子研究所，普林茨克分子工程学院，芝加哥大学）；Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem（拉卡物理研究所，耶路撒冷希伯来大学）；Department of Physics, ETH Zürich（苏黎世联邦理工学院物理系）
Sensing and measurement tasks in severely adverse conditions such as loss, noise and dephasing can be improved by illumination with quantum states of light. Previous results have shown a modest reduction in the number of measurements necessary to achieve a given precision. Here, we compare three illumination strategies for estimating the relative phase in a noisy, lossy interferometer. When including a common phase fluctuation in the noise processes, we show that using an entangled probe achieves an advantage in parameter estimation precision that scales with the number of entangled modes. Thi…
Quantum illumination is a powerful sensing technique that employs entangled signal-idler photon pairs to boost the detection efficiency of low-reflectivity objects in environments with bright thermal noise. The promised advantage over classical strategies is particularly evident at low signal powers, a feature which could make the protocol an ideal prototype for non-invasive biomedical scanning or low-power short-range radar. In this work we experimentally investigate the concept of quantum illumination at microwave frequencies. We generate entangled fields using a Josephson parametric convert…
Quantum repeaters are essential ingredients for quantum networks that link distant quantum modules such as quantum computers and sensors. Motivated by distributed quantum computing and communication, quantum repeaters that relay discrete-variable quantum information have been extensively studied; while continuous-variable (CV) quantum information underpins a variety of quantum sensing and communication application, a quantum-repeater architecture for genuine CV quantum information remains largely unexplored. This paper reports a CV quantum-repeater architecture based on CV quantum teleportatio…
Entanglement is a powerful tool for quantum sensing, and entangled states can greatly boost the discriminative power of protocols for quantum illumination, quantum metrology, or quantum reading. However, entangled state protocols generally require the retention of an idler state, to which the probes are entangled. Storing a quantum state is difficult and so technological limitations can make protocols requiring quantum memories impracticable. One alternative is idler-free protocols that utilise non-classical sources but do not require any idler states to be stored. Here we apply such a protoco…
Journey in quantum metrology and sensing from foundations to applications: a review
Harish-Chandra Research Institute（哈里什-钱德拉研究所）；Homi Bhabha National Institute（霍米·巴哈国家研究所）；Instytut Fizyki Teoretycznej, Wydział Fizyki, Astronomii i Informatyki Stosowanej, Uniwersytet Jagielloński（雅盖隆大学物理、天文学与应用信息学系理论物理研究所）
