A Bayesian validation approach to practical boson sampling

Abstract

Boson sampling is a promising candidate for demonstrating quantum supremacy. The validation that involves judging whether a quantum setup outputs photons following the boson sampling model is an essential task in the experiments. However, the current validation methods may result in an incorrect conclusion being reached in realistic experiments, in which no ideally identical photons exist. Accordingly, this study proposes a slope-based approach, which is an extended Bayesian validation, to model the degree of photon indistinguishability. Through numerical simulations and performance evaluations, we demonstrate that the proposed approach can correctly validate boson sampling against the distribution of classical particles. In addition to offering a useful approach for validation, our research indicates that physicists should pay more attention to the quality of photon indistinguishability in boson sampling experiments.