Proposal for witnessing non-classical light with the human eye

We give a complete proposal showing how to detect the non-classical nature of photonic states with naked eyes as detectors. The enabling technology is a sub-Poissonian photonic state that is obtained from single photons, displacement operations in phase space and basic non-photon-number-resolving detectors. We present a detailed statistical analysis of our proposal including imperfect photon creation and detection and a realistic model of the human eye. We conclude that a few tens of hours are sufficient to certify non-classical light with the human eye with a p-value of 10%.

[1]  D. Baylor,et al.  Single-photon detection by rod cells of the retina , 1998 .

[2]  Pavel Sekatski,et al.  Towards quantum experiments with human eyes as detectors based on cloning via stimulated emission. , 2009, Physical review letters.

[3]  R. Glauber.  Coherent and incoherent states of the radiation field , 1963 .

[4]  W. Marsden.  I and J , 2012 .

[5]  N. Gisin,et al.  Comparing different approaches for generating random numbers device-independently using a photon pair source , 2014, 1409.8051.

[6]  Todd A. Brun,et al.  Quantum Computing , 2011, Computer Science, The Hardware, Software and Heart of It.

[7]  Ericka Stricklin-Parker,et al.  Ann , 2005 .

[8]  Nicolas Gisin,et al.  Possible entanglement detection with the naked eye , 2008 .

[9]  N. Sangouard,et al.  What does it take to detect entanglement with the human eye , 2016 .

[10]  N. Gisin,et al.  Displacement of entanglement back and forth between the micro and macro domains , 2012, Nature Physics.

[11]  F. Rieke,et al.  Retinal processing near absolute threshold: from behavior to mechanism. , 2005, Annual review of physiology.

[12]  N. Gisin,et al.  Detector imperfections in photon-pair source characterization , 2011, 1109.0194.

[13]  Kristian Donner,et al.  Noise and the absolute thresholds of cone and rod vision , 1992, Vision Research.

[14]  J. Calsamiglia,et al.  Computable measure of nonclassicality for light. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[15]  Maira Amezcua,et al.  Quantum Optics , 2012 .

[16]  H Zbinden,et al.  Revealing genuine optical-path entanglement. , 2015, Physical review letters.

[17]  S. Lloyd,et al.  Advances in quantum metrology , 2011, 1102.2318.

[18]  S. Hecht,et al.  ENERGY, QUANTA, AND VISION , 1942, The Journal of general physiology.

[19]  Nicolas Gisin,et al.  Quantum communication , 2017, 2017 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition (OFC).

[20]  R. Prevedel,et al.  Direct detection of a single photon by humans , 2016, Nature Communications.

[21]  H. Zbinden,et al.  High efficiency coupling of photon pairs in practice. , 2013, Optics express.