Boson Sampling and Quantum Imaging for Complex Biological Systems

光的量子态的基本性质和它们的探测在很大程度上是建立和理解的。因此，近年来提出了几种基于光量子态的传感和成像方案，从幽灵成像到量子光学相干层析成像。然而，在生物成像和医学成像等重要应用领域展示和充分利用可能的量子优势仍然是一个挑战。通过在量子光学，信息理论和计算成像之间的接口工作，我们将发展多光子相关成像和玻色子采样成为成像的新技术，然后将以前所未有的精度解决与应用于神经元活动和退化的生物和医学成像相关的重要问题。我们将利用的潜在物理机制是光子聚结或聚束，这是一种量子效应，当两个光子在分束器中重叠时，它们会聚在一起。这些测量允许人们对两个光子中一个的路径的微小变化进行非常精确的探测。我们将把这个概念发扬光大，在神经元密度的大深度上发展增强成像，在亚皮秒尺度上发展荧光寿命成像，在神经元活动的分辨率上提高几个数量级。类似的，甚至更丰富的光子聚集效应也发生在复杂的介质中，例如，作为分束器的散射缺陷。我们将采用多光子态，以一种非常类似于最近依赖于玻色子采样的量子计算机的方式：这里的生物系统，例如神经元的集合，充当复杂的玻色子采样介质，某种量子生物计算机。玻色子采样将用于检测和跟踪在大空间尺度的大脑结构变化的进展，由于神经变性。

The basic nature of quantum states of light and their detection is largely well established and understood. Consequently, several sensing and imaging schemes based on quantum states of light have been proposed over the years, ranging from ghost imaging to quantum optical coherence tomography. However, the challenge still remains to demonstrate and fully exploit possible quantum advantages in important application areas such as bio-imaging and medical imaging. By working at the interface between quantum optics, information theory and computational imaging, we will develop many-photon correlation imaging and Boson sampling into new techniques for imaging and will then tackle important problems related to bio and medical imaging applied to neuron activity and degeneration with unprecedented precision.The underlying physical mechanism we will harness is photon coalescence or bunching, a quantum effect whereby two photons bunch together when they overlap at a beamsplitter. These measurements allow one to perform very precise detection of small changes in the path of the one of the two photons. We will carry this concept forward and develop enhanced imaging at large depths of neuron density and imaging of fluorescence lifetimes at the sub-picosecond scale with orders of magnitude enhancement in the resolution of neuron activity. Similar and even richer photon bunching effects take also place in complex media made of, for example, scattering defects that act as beamsplitters. We will employ multi-photon states, in a very similar fashion to recent quantum computers that rely on Boson Sampling: here the biological system, e.g. a collection of neurons, act as the complex Boson sampling medium, a quantum biological computer of sorts. Boson sampling will be used to detect and track progression over large spatial scales of structural changes in the brain due to neurodegeneration.