Testing the limits of human vision with quantum states of light: past, present, and future experiments

Rebecca M. Holmes; Michelle M. Victora; Ranxiao Frances Wang; Paul G. Kwiat

doi:10.1117/12.2306092

14 May 2018 Testing the limits of human vision with quantum states of light: past, present, and future experiments

Rebecca M. Holmes, Michelle M. Victora, Ranxiao Frances Wang, Paul G. Kwiat

Proceedings Volume 10659, Advanced Photon Counting Techniques XII; 1065903 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2306092
Event: SPIE Commercial + Scientific Sensing and Imaging, 2018, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

The human eye contains millions of rod photoreceptor cells, and each one is a single-photon detector. Whether people can actually see a single photon|which requires the rod signal to propagate through the rest of the noisy visual system and be perceived in the brain|has been the subject of research for nearly 100 years. Early experiments hinted that people could see just a few photons, but classical light sources are poor tools for answering these questions. Single-photon sources have opened up a new area of vision research, providing the best evidence yet that humans can indeed see single photons, and could even be used to test quantum effects through the visual system. We discuss our program to study the lower limits of human vision with a heralded single-photon source based on spontaneous parametric downconversion, and present two proposed experiments to explore quantum effects through the visual system: testing the perception of superposition states, and using a human observer as a detector in a Bell test.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Rebecca M. Holmes, Michelle M. Victora, Ranxiao Frances Wang, and Paul G. Kwiat "Testing the limits of human vision with quantum states of light: past, present, and future experiments", Proc. SPIE 10659, Advanced Photon Counting Techniques XII, 1065903 (14 May 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2306092

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