Long-baseline interferometry (LBI) is used to reconstruct the image of faint thermal objects. The image quality, for a given exposure time, is in general limited by a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We show theoretically that a significant increase of the SNR, in a LBI, is possible by adding or subtracting photons to the thermal beam. At low photon counts, photon addition-subtraction technology strongly enhances the image quality. We have experimentally realized a nondeterministic physical protocol for photon subtraction. Our theoretical predictions are supported by experimental results.
@article{arxiv.1609.02780,
title = {Enhanced Thermal Object Imaging by Photon Addition or Subtraction},
author = {Claudio Parazzoli and Benjamin Koltenbah and David Gerwe and Paul Idell and Bryan Gard and Richard Birrittella and S M Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Mirhosseini and O S Magan-Loiza and Jonathan Dowling and Christofer Gerry and Robert Boyd and Barbara Capron},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.02780},
year = {2016}
}