Quantum Interference between Light Sources Separated by 150 Million Kilometers

We report an experiment to test quantum interference, entanglement, and nonlocality using two dissimilar photon sources, the Sun and a semiconductor quantum dot on the Earth, which are separated by ∼150  million kilometers. By making the otherwise vastly distinct photons indistinguishable in all deg...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2019-08, Vol.123 (8), p.080401-080401, Article 080401
Main Authors: Deng, Yu-Hao, Wang, Hui, Ding, Xing, Duan, Z-C, Qin, Jian, Chen, M-C, He, Yu, He, Yu-Ming, Li, Jin-Peng, Li, Yu-Huai, Peng, Li-Chao, Matekole, E S, Byrnes, Tim, Schneider, C, Kamp, M, Wang, Da-Wei, Dowling, Jonathan P, Höfling, Sven, Lu, Chao-Yang, Scully, Marlan O, Pan, Jian-Wei
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bell's inequality
Celestial bodies
Interference
Light sources
Photons
Quantum dots
Quantum entanglement
Quantum optics
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Summary:We report an experiment to test quantum interference, entanglement, and nonlocality using two dissimilar photon sources, the Sun and a semiconductor quantum dot on the Earth, which are separated by ∼150  million kilometers. By making the otherwise vastly distinct photons indistinguishable in all degrees of freedom, we observe time-resolved two-photon quantum interference with a raw visibility of 0.796(17), well above the 0.5 classical limit, providing unambiguous evidence of the quantum nature of thermal light. Further, using the photons with no common history, we demonstrate postselected two-photon entanglement with a state fidelity of 0.826(24) and a violation of Bell inequality by 2.20(6). The experiment can be further extended to a larger scale using photons from distant stars and open a new route to quantum optics experiments at an astronomical scale.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.123.080401