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In this paper, we introduce a neighbor embedding framework for manifold alignment. We demonstrate the efficacy of the framework using a manifold-aligned version of the uniform manifold approximation and projection algorithm. We show that our algorithm can learn an aligned manifold that is visually competitive to embedding of the whole dataset., Comment: Accepted at the ICLR 2022 Workshop on Geometrical and Topological Representation Learning

Pixelation occurs in many imaging systems and limits the spatial resolution of the acquired images. This effect is notably present in quantum imaging experiments with correlated photons in which the number of pixels used to detect coincidences is often limited by the sensor technology or the acquisition speed. Here, we introduce a pixel super-resolution technique based on measuring the full spatially-resolved joint probability distribution (JPD) of spatially-entangled photons. Without shifting optical elements or using prior information, our technique increases the pixel resolution of the imaging system by a factor two and enables retrieval of spatial information lost due to undersampling. We demonstrate its use in various quantum imaging protocols using photon pairs, including quantum illumination, entanglement-enabled quantum holography, and in a full-field version of N00N-state quantum holography. The JPD pixel super-resolution technique can benefit any full-field imaging system limited by the sensor spatial resolution, including all already established and future photon-correlation-based quantum imaging schemes, bringing these techniques closer to real-world applications., Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures

Recovering a signal from its Fourier intensity underlies many important applications, including lensless imaging and imaging through scattering media. Conventional algorithms for retrieving the phase suffer when noise is present but display global convergence when given clean data. Neural networks have been used to improve algorithm robustness, but efforts to date are sensitive to initial conditions and give inconsistent performance. Here, we combine iterative methods from phase retrieval with image statistics from deep denoisers, via regularization-by-denoising. The resulting methods inherit the advantages of each approach and outperform other noise-robust phase retrieval algorithms. Our work paves the way for hybrid imaging methods that integrate machine-learned constraints in conventional algorithms.

Entangled photons have the remarkable ability to be more sensitive to signal and less sensitive to noise than classical light. Joint photons can sample an object collectively, resulting in faster phase accumulation and higher spatial resolution, while common components of noise can be subtracted. Even more, they can accomplish this while physically separate, due to the nonlocal properties of quantum mechanics. Indeed, nearly all quantum optics experiments rely on this separation, using individual point detectors that are scanned to measure coincidence counts and correlations. Scanning, however, is tedious, time consuming, and ill-suited for imaging. Moreover, the separation of beam paths adds complexity to the system while reducing the number of photons available for sampling, and the multiplicity of detectors does not scale well for greater numbers of photons and higher orders of entanglement. We bypass all of these problems here by directly imaging collinear photon pairs with an electron-multiplying CCD camera. We show explicitly the benefits of quantum nonlocality by engineering the spatial entanglement of the illuminating photons and introduce a new method of correlation measurement by converting time-domain coincidence counting into spatial-domain detection of selected pixels. We show that classical transport-of-intensity methods are applicable in the quantum domain and experimentally demonstrate nearly optimal (Heisenberg-limited) phase measurement for the given quantum illumination. The methods show the power of direct imaging and hold much potential for more general types of quantum information processing and control.

Phase transitions give crucial insight into many-body systems, as crossovers between different regimes of order are determined by the underlying dynamics. These dynamics, in turn, are often constrained by dimensionality and geometry. For example, in one- and two-dimensional systems with continuous symmetry, thermal fluctuations prevent the formation of long-range order[1,2]. Two-dimensional systems are particularly significant, as vortices can form in the plane but cannot tilt out of it. At high temperatures, random motion of these vortices destroys large-scale coherence. At low temperatures, vortices with opposite spin can pair together, cancelling their circulation and allowing quasi-long-range order to appear. This Berezenskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition[3,4] is essentially classical, arising for example in the traditional XY model for spins, but to date experimental evidence has been obtained only in cold quantum systems. Measurements of superfluid sound speed[5] and critical velocity[6] have been consistent with scaling predictions, and vortices have been observed directly in cold atom experiments[7,8]. However, the presence of trapping potentials restricts measurement to vortex density, rather than number, and obscures the process of vortex unbinding. Further, atom and fluid experiments suffer from parasitic heating and difficulties in phase recording, leading to results that differ from theory in many quantitative aspects. Here, we use a nonlinear optical system to directly observe the ideal BKT transition, including vortex pair dynamics and the correlation properties of the wavefunction, for both repulsive and attractiveinteractions (the photonic equivalent of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic conditions[9]). The results confirm the thermodynamics of the BKT transition and expose outstanding issues in the crossovers to superfluidity and Bose-Einstein condensation., 7 pages, 4 figures

We demonstrate second-band bright vortex-array solitons in photonic lattices. This constitutes the first experimental observation of higher-band solitons in any 2D periodic system. These solitons possess complex intensity and phase structures, yet they can be excited by a simple highly-localized vortex-ring beam. Finally, we show that the linear diffraction of such beams exhibits preferential transport along the lattice axes.

We predict random-phase spatial solitons in instantaneous nonlocal nonlinear media. The key mechanism responsible for self-trapping of such incoherent wave-packets is played by the non-local (rather than the traditional non-instantaneous) nature of the nonlinearity. This new kind of incoherent solitons has profoundly different features than other incoherent solitons.