Optical neural network quantum state tomography

Quantum state tomography (QST) is a crucial ingredient for almost all aspects of experimental quantum information processing. As an analog of the imaging technique in quantum settings, QST is born to be a data science problem, where machine learning techniques, noticeably neural networks, have been applied extensively. We build and demonstrate an optical neural network (ONN) for photonic polarization qubit QST. The ONN is equipped with built-in optical nonlinear activation functions based on electromagnetically induced transparency. The experimental results show that our ONN can determine the phase parameter of the qubit state accurately. As optics are highly desired for quantum interconnections, our ONN-QST may contribute to the realization of optical quantum networks and inspire the ideas combining artificial optical intelligence with quantum information studies.

Automated summary

Quantum state tomography (QST) is crucial for experimental quantum information processing, and optical neural networks (ONN) show promising potential in photonic polarization qubit QST.