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Experimental validation of photonic boson sampling

Nature Photonics volume 8, pages 615–620 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

A boson sampling device is a specialized quantum computer that solves a problem that is strongly believed to be computationally hard for classical computers1. Recently, a number of small-scale implementations have been reported2,3,4,5, all based on multiphoton interference in multimode interferometers. Akin to several quantum simulation and computation tasks, an open problem in the hard-to-simulate regime is to what extent the correctness of the boson sampling outcomes can be certified6,7. Here, we report new boson sampling experiments on larger photonic chips and analyse the data using a recently proposed scalable statistical test8. We show that the test successfully validates small experimental data samples against the hypothesis that they are uniformly distributed. In addition, we show how to discriminate data arising from either indistinguishable or distinguishable photons. Our results pave the way towards larger boson sampling experiments whose functioning, despite being non-trivial to simulate, can be certified against alternative hypotheses.

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Figure 1: Boson sampling and its certification.
Figure 2: Experimental validation of boson sampling.
Figure 3: Full validation of the boson sampling experiments.
Figure 4: Discrimination between alternative distributions.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge feedback from S. Aaronson, A. Arkhipov, L. Aolita and J. Eisert. This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC-Starting Grant 3D-QUEST, 3D-Quantum Integrated Optical Simulation, grant agreement no. 307783, http://www.3dquest.eu/), by Progetto d'Ateneo SUPERCONTINUUM (Generation and Characterization of Supercontinuum Laser Sources for Bio-spectroscopy and Quantum Optics), by PRIN (Programmi di ricerca di rilevante interesse nazionale) project AQUASIM (Advanced Quantum Simulation and Metrology) and by the Brazilian National Institute for Science and Technology of Quantum Information (INCT-IQ/CNPq).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Università di Roma, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, Roma, I-00185, Italy

    Nicolò Spagnolo, Chiara Vitelli, Marco Bentivegna, Fulvio Flamini, Sandro Giacomini, Giorgio Milani, Paolo Mataloni & Fabio Sciarrino

  2. Center of Life NanoScience @ La Sapienza, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Viale Regina Elena, 255, Roma, I-00185, Italy

    Chiara Vitelli

  3. Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Av. Gal. Milton Tavares de Souza s/n, Niterói, RJ, 24210-340, Brazil

    Daniel J. Brod & Ernesto F. Galvão

  4. Istituto di Fotonica e Nanotecnologie, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (IFN-CNR), Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, 32, Milano, I-20133, Italy

    Andrea Crespi, Roberta Ramponi & Roberto Osellame

  5. Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, 32, Milano, I-20133, Italy

    Andrea Crespi, Roberta Ramponi & Roberto Osellame

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  1. Nicolò Spagnolo
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Contributions

N.S., C.V., M.B., D.J.B., P.M., R.O., E.F.G. and F.S. conceived the experimental approach for the validation of boson sampling. A.C., R.R. and R.O. fabricated and characterized the integrated devices using classical optics. N.S., C.V., M.B., F.F. and F.S. carried out the quantum experiments. S.G. and G.M. developed the data acquistion system. N.S., C.V., M.B., D.J.B., P.M., E.F.G. and F.S. elaborated the data. All authors discussed the experimental implementation and results, and contributed to writing the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Roberto Osellame, Ernesto F. Galvão or Fabio Sciarrino.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Spagnolo, N., Vitelli, C., Bentivegna, M. et al. Experimental validation of photonic boson sampling. Nature Photon 8, 615–620 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.135

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