Quantum Interference between Light Sources Separated by 150 Million Kilometers

• Published in: Physical review letters Vol. 123; no. 8; p. 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: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Physical Society 23-08-2019
• Subjects: Bell's inequality; Celestial bodies; Interference; Light sources; Photons; Quantum dots; Quantum entanglement; Quantum optics; Visibility
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.123.080401

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.