The maturity of fields such as optical physics and quantum optics has brought with it a new era where the photon represents a promising information resource. In the past few years, scientists and engineers have exploited multiple degrees of freedom of the photon to perform information processing for a wide variety of applications. Of particular importance, the transverse spatial degree of freedom has offered a flexible platform to test complex quantum information protocols in a relatively simple fashion. In this regard, novel imaging techniques that exploit the quantum properties of light have also been investigated. In this review article, we describe the fundamental parameters that describe the spatial wavefunction of the photon and establish their importance for applications in quantum information processing. More specifically, we describe the underlying physics behind remarkable protocols in which information is processed through high-dimensional spatial states of photons with sub-shot-noise levels or where quantum images with unique resolution features are formed. We also discuss the fundamental role that certain imaging techniques have played in the development of novel methods for quantum information processing and vice versa.

中文翻译：

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量子成像和信息

光学物理和量子光学等领域的成熟带来了一个新时代，光子是一种很有前途的信息资源。在过去几年中，科学家和工程师已经利用光子的多个自由度来为各种应用执行信息处理。特别重要的是，横向空间自由度提供了一个灵活的平台，可以以相对简单的方式测试复杂的量子信息协议。在这方面，还研究了利用光的量子特性的新型成像技术。在这篇评论文章中，我们描述了描述光子空间波函数的基本参数，并确定了它们在量子信息处理中的应用的重要性。进一步来说，我们描述了非凡协议背后的基础物理学，其中信息通过具有亚散粒噪声水平的光子的高维空间状态进行处理，或者形成具有独特分辨率特征的量子图像。我们还讨论了某些成像技术在量子信息处理新方法的发展中所发挥的基本作用，反之亦然。