Expand this Topic clickable element to expand a topic
Skip to content
Optica Publishing Group

Quantum memories and the double-slit experiment: implications for astronomical interferometry

Not Accessible

Your library or personal account may give you access

Abstract

Thomas Young’s slit experiment lies at the heart of classical interference and quantum mechanics. Over the last 50 years, it has been shown that particles (e.g., photons, electrons, large molecules), even individual particles, generate an interference pattern at a distant screen after passage through a double slit, thereby demonstrating wave-particle duality. We revisit this famous experiment by replacing both slits with single-mode fiber inputs to two independent quantum memories that are capable of storing the incident electromagnetic field’s amplitude and phase as a function of time. At a later time, the action is reversed: the quantum memories are read out in synchrony, and the single-mode fiber outputs are allowed to interact, consistent with the original observation. In contrast to any classical memory device, the write and read processes of a quantum memory are non-destructive and hence preserve the photonic quantum states. In principle, with sufficiently long storage times and sufficiently high photonic storage capacity, quantum memories operating at widely separated telescopes can be brought together to achieve optical interferometry over arbitrarily long baselines.

© 2021 Optical Society of America

Full Article  |  PDF Article
More Like This
Ultralong photon-echo-based quantum memories using optical locking

Byoung S. Ham
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 29(3) 463-474 (2012)

Proposal and proof-of-principle demonstration of fast-switching broadband frequency shifting for a frequency-multiplexed quantum repeater

Peng-Cheng Wang, Oriol Pietx-Casas, Mohsen Falamarzi Askarani, and Gustavo Castro do Amaral
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 38(4) 1140-1146 (2021)

Quantum optical memory for entanglement distribution

Yisheng Lei, Faezeh Kimiaee Asadi, Tian Zhong, Alex Kuzmich, Christoph Simon, and Mahdi Hosseini
Optica 10(11) 1511-1528 (2023)

Data Availability

Data underlying the results presented in this paper are not publicly available at this time but may be obtained from the authors upon reasonable request.

Cited By

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription

Figures (5)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Figure files are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription

Equations (5)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Equations are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription

Select as filters


Select Topics Cancel
© Copyright 2024 | Optica Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved