Boson Sampling and Quantum Imaging for Complex Biological Systems

光的量子态及其检测的基本性质在很大程度上是确定和理解的。因此，多年来已经提出了几种基于光的量子态的传感和成像方案，范围从鬼成像到量子光学相干断层扫描。然而，在生物成像和医学成像等重要应用领域，展示和充分利用量子优势仍然是一个挑战。通过研究量子光学、信息论和计算成像之间的接口，我们将把多光子相关成像和玻色子采样发展成新的成像技术，然后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，当两个光子在分束器处重叠时，它们聚在一起的量子效应。这些测量允许人们对两个光子之一的路径中的微小变化进行非常精确的检测。我们将继续推进这一概念，并开发在大深度的神经元密度和成像的荧光寿命在亚皮秒尺度的神经元活动的分辨率的数量级增强的增强成像。类似的甚至更丰富的光子聚束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，与最近依赖玻色子采样的量子计算机非常相似：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，一种量子生物计算机。玻色子采样将用于检测和跟踪由于神经变性引起的大脑结构变化的大空间尺度的进展。

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.