Quantum-Assisted Optical Interferometers: Instrument Requirements

Abstract

It has been recently suggested that optical interferometers may not require a phase-stable optical link between the stations if instead sources of quantum-mechanically entangled pairs could be provided to them, enabling extra-long baselines and benefiting numerous topics in astrophysics and cosmology. We developed a new variation of this idea, proposing that photons from two different sources could be interfered at two decoupled stations, requiring only a slow classical connection between them. We show that this approach could allow high-precision measurements of the relative astrometry of the two sources, with a simple estimate giving angular resolution of $10\mu$as in a few hours' observation of two bright stars. We also give requirements on the instrument for these observations, in particular on its temporal and spectral resolution. Finally, we discuss possible technologies for the instrument implementation and first proof-of-principle experiments.

arXiv commentintended for SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2020 conference

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• High Speed Imaging of Spectral-Temporal Correlations in Hong-Ou-Mandel Interference
• Intensified Tpx3Cam, a fast data-driven optical camera with nanosecond timing resolution for single photon detection in quantum applications
• A quantitative comparison of amplitude versus intensity interferometry for astronomy
• Snapshot hyperspectral imaging with quantum correlated photons
• Classification of four-qubit entangled states via Machine Learning
• Astrometric Gravitational-Wave Detection via Stellar Interferometry
• Towards Quantum Telescopes: Demonstration of a Two-Photon Interferometer for Quantum-Assisted Astronomy
• Fast data-driven spectrometer with direct measurement of time and frequency for multiple single photons
• Astrophotonics -- current capabilities and the road ahead
• Fast imaging of single photons in quantum assisted optical interferometers