Quantum computational imaging and sensing

Quantum transduction is the process of converting quantum information from one physical system to another. Most work on transduction thus far has focused on how this could be used to network quantum computers. However, transduction also presents possible avenues for performing measurements that are challenging to do on some physical system, by first transducing the quantum information into a different physical system which can more easily execute the measurement.

In this work, we explore this concept for measuring light by first transducing optical states into qubits of a quantum computer that then coherently processes the quantum information, a paradigm we call “quantum computational imaging and sensing” (QCIS). The QCIS concept, when paired with a universal quantum computer, enables arbitrary collective measurements of light, a notoriously difficult application in optics generally. We demonstrate a quantum advantage scenario in coherent optical communications that makes use of this QCIS concept [arXiv:2309.15914]. We then discuss a quantum sensing application using the QCIS paradigm to make measurements of nonlocal properties of multimode optical fields.

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