The wave-particle duality of light introduces two fundamental problems to imaging, namely, the diffraction limit and the photon shot noise. Quantum information theory can tackle them both in one holistic formalism: model the light as a quantum object, consider any quantum measurement, and pick the one that gives the best statistics. While Helstrom pioneered the theory half a century ago and first applied it to incoherent imaging, it was not until recently that the approach offered a genuine surprise on the age-old topic by predicting a new class of superior imaging methods. For the resolution of two sub-Rayleigh sources, the new methods have been shown theoretically and experimentally to outperform direct imaging and approach the true quantum limits. Recent efforts to generalize the theory for an arbitrary number of sources suggest that, despite the existence of harsh quantum limits, the quantum-inspired methods can still offer significant improvements over direct imaging for subdiffraction objects, potentially benefiting many applications in astronomy as well as fluorescence microscopy.

中文翻译：

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解析星光：量子视角

光的波粒二象性给成像带来了两个基本问题，即衍射极限和光子散粒噪声。量子信息理论可以用一种整体形式来解决它们：将光建模为量子对象，考虑任何量子测量，然后选择提供最佳统计数据的测量。虽然 Helstrom 在半个世纪前率先提出了这一理论，并首先将其应用于非相干成像，但直到最近，该方法才通过预测一类新的高级成像方法为这个古老的话题带来了真正的惊喜。对于两个亚瑞利源的分辨率，新方法已在理论上和实验上显示优于直接成像并接近真正的量子极限。最近将理论推广到任意数量的来源的努力表明，