Quantum-accelerated imaging of N stars

Abstract

Imaging point sources with low angular separation near or below the Rayleigh criterion is important in astronomy, e.g., in the search for habitable exoplanets near stars. However, the measurement time required to resolve stars in the sub-Rayleigh region via traditional direct imaging is usually prohibitive. Here we propose quantum-accelerated imaging (QAI) to significantly reduce the measurement time using an information-theoretic approach. QAI achieves quantum acceleration by adaptively learning optimal measurements from data to maximize Fisher information per detected photon. Our approach can be implemented experimentally by linear-projection instruments followed by a single-photon detector array. We estimate the position, brightness and the number of unknown stars $10\sim 100$ times faster than direct imaging with the same aperture. QAI is scalable to large number of incoherent point sources and can find widespread applicability beyond astronomy to high-speed imaging, fluorescence microscopy and efficient optical read-out of qubits.

arXiv comment12 pages, 4 figures

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• Imaging arbitrary incoherent source distributions with near quantum-limited resolution
• Quantum limits of parameter estimation in long-baseline imaging
• Tight information bounds for spontaneous emission lifetime resolution of quantum sources with varied spectral purity
• Measuring the Oscillation Frequency Beyond the Diffraction Limit
• Adaptive quantum state estimation for two optical point sources
• Quantum resolution limit of long-baseline imaging using distributed entanglement