Quantum-Assisted Telescope Arrays

Quantum networks provide a platform for astronomical interferometers capable of imaging faint stellar objects. In a recent work [arXiv:1809.01659], we presented a protocol that circumvents transmission losses with efficient use of quantum resources and modest quantum memories. Here we analyze a number of extensions to that scheme. We show that it can be operated as a truly broadband interferometer and generalized to multiple sites in the array. We also analyze how imaging based on the quantum Fourier transform provides improved signal-to-noise ratio compared to classical processing. Finally, we discuss physical realizations including photon-detection-based quantum state transfer.
Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures; v2 - clarifications and references; v3 - close to published version